Light in the Darkness
by Tutankhamunfreak
Summary: It has been three months since the 'death' of L. However, when L wakes with no memories of the previous nine months, he must piece together both his past and the Kira case before time runs out for him and those closest to him. And yet he is also inexplicably drawn to the charming Raito Yagami, despite being warned against him... Rated T LxLight, OC
1. I: Awakening

**Hi, this is my first Death Note fanfic so please go easy on me! Thanks. Just to say, this will be updated weekly and no sooner as I am currently very busy. However, before you start to read a few things:**

 **1) This is a LxLight fanfic but as it is rated T it will not be explicit. If you don't like, then please don't read. Also as a side note, I have used the original name for Light (Raito) in this story.**

 **2) I know that (spoiler) L's real name is L Lawliet but I tweaked it slightly in this story for a reason. It will be explained but before the hard-core fans start to rip this to shreds, I wanted to make that clear. And yes, due to this change, and others, L may also be slightly OOC- I can appreciate if this bothers you and I have tried to make him as accurate as possible otherwise it would bother me as well.**

 **3) There is an OC in this. If you despise OC's, please don't criticise as I warned you.**

 **4) Yes, I have taken creative licence with both L's background and B's (for later). I haven't read Death Note:Another Note but I do plan to, although it probably won't happen before I have finished writing this so apologise if he too is OOC (although I do enjoy writing psychopaths :) )**

 **Other than that, please enjoy the story. I hope I haven't annoyed anybody too much with this by making it a little AU-ish.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note as I don't think I am clever enough to keep up with L or Light.**

* * *

 _It was dark and cold wherever he was, but L couldn't bring himself to care. He had been falling and there was the face of a single person, the most important person towards him at the time, smirking down at him, features twisted in a way that L had thought that no human face could twist into. It was not a pleasant smirk, nor an arrogant one, proclaiming 'I've won and there's nothing that you can do about it'. L couldn't stand that for many reasons: it meant he had failed in solving the case in time to save any more innocent lives being lost, that he had failed in proving that he had been right all along and that he had failed in the duty of being a friend and talking him out of being Kira. Of acting god over the people of the world like they were too stupid to realise that they were being manipulated, just like Hitler or Stalin._

 _It was all a lie, this promise of something better. And L hadn't been able to save them, to save the world from Kira's wrath that would only get worse over time. Kira wasn't human. Kira was a bloodthirsty being that could only be fed with the deaths of thousands of people, and the more that died the more Kira's hunger would grow. He had seen it before in murderers, terrorists… in B. But L didn't want to think about B, about the twisted corpses he had left behind, about the bleeding body of A in the bathtub…_

I don't want to think anymore _, L thought, or at least he thought he was thinking. Was this death? Was this what everyone was subconsciously afraid of, this floating cold darkness where he would hang for all eternity? Or was this just an interim before moving on to wherever it was that spirits went to? L didn't believe in heaven or hell because he had been a man of science rather than mystery. That had been Mitsu's place, to delve into the world of the occult. But after the revelation of the existence of Shinigami to him, that such creatures could live in another world and care so little about human life that they would make a game as sick as allowing humans to play about with their Death Notes like they were some kind of gods to them… It made him sick._

 _And it hurt. By God did it hurt that after everything that had happened, everyone he had suspected, it hurt that he was right. He wondered whether Soichiro would work it out, or whether he would die believing that his son was innocent of any crime. He wondered how much it would hurt the man, who so desperately wanted to believe that his son could do no wrong he was prepared to kill both Raito and himself if he had turned out to be Kira. He wondered if he would keep that promise on his honour._

I hate being right. Why did I have to be right? _Couldn't he have been wrong just this once, suspecting the wrong people despite the circumstantial evidence against them that could simply be coincidence? That the Task Force had been right instead and that Kira was still out there? And yes, there was a small part that cried at the loss of his friend, trapped behind the façade that was Kira, the_ thing _that was consuming him. He wanted it all to go away._

I wish I had never met Raito Yagami. I wish I had never heard of Kira.

 _If L could cry he would have. It hurt so much, he just wanted the pain to end. He wanted to replace that last view of the world that horrible smirk and the crushing realisation that not only had he been right, but that Raito was gone, lost with his own death. He wanted to think about Wammy's and Mello and Near and B before everything went wrong. About A when he was alive and happy, not sinking slowly in that bloodstained bath. About Mitsu, laughing in a tree daring him to follow her, about their parents smiling down at them at Christmas-time… He tried to bury the memories of the past few months, wishing them away but Raito's face, that transition that he hadn't been able to stop thinking about, just wouldn't go away._

Think about Mitsu _, L thought desperately, shoving the image away. He imagined gathering up the memories since the Kira case started, even the ones of just sitting staring at a screen in a darkened room as the NPA rushed around trying to work out this case right back at the start of summer last year, and throwing them into a vault of his own design, behind locks and bars that would keep even B out… And then buried himself in that memory of Mitsu and the tree, building a swing on one of the lower branches, of sneaking Mello chocolate, of playing with a five-year old Near, of learning tennis with B and carrying on playing despite the fact that his friend ran away after A's death, of his mother tucking them into bed at night when they were only three and had no idea that in less than a year they would be orphans on the street…_

" _Mitsu…" he whispered, clutching all memory of her to his heart. "Mitsu, I'm sorry I can't protect you anymore." He could imagine her heartbroken, standing in front of a tombstone trying not to cry, tears sliding silently down her face. She would try to be brave, to put on the mask that they were all taught and pretend that he didn't exist because legally he didn't, for security reasons. Someone would have sent her the box too, the one with all these memories in that he took everywhere, despite the fact that Watari disapproved. He had warned L that it was risky, that if they forgot it or lost anything out of it, he would have lost potentially dangerous secrets that could get her hurt. There was only one other person he might have trusted with that box but he couldn't… not when he was dead and he had to forget any thoughts about that…_

 _They are locked away. Don't think about it at all. Raito is lost, the Task Force is lost, gobbled up by Kira. The next time we meet we will be dead and I must not weep for them… I must not remember…_

* * *

The hospital was just as bright and bland as the last time that Soichiro Yagami had walked down to room 102. It was pleasant enough for a hospital he supposed, although the fees were expensive and the NPA refused to pay for the funds themselves- probably because Soichiro had been warned by three different doctors that the possibility of anything coming of this was low. If he survived… well, he had been told in no uncertain terms exactly how low the chances of him pulling through unscathed were. For someone to have been without oxygen for so long, to have been resuscitated but not having regained physical consciousness usually pointed to one thing. They had told him to prepare for the worst and to take the decision to just give in, but he couldn't, not after everything that he had been through, after everything the man had put him and his family through.

 _Not after that desperate plea for Watari_ … Most of the others hadn't heard it, but Soichiro was a father to his own genius and Raito had done that as a child sometimes when he was scared. He knew that his son had a lot of pride, even back then, and admitting that he was afraid had been out of the question and so he had never admitted outright to being scared but every so often, especially if he thought that he might lose him, that same undercurrent, that same plea was there. _Don't leave me_ it said. _I'm not ready for you to go yet_.

He sighed and opened the door, revealing the room beyond. It was as nice a private room as Soichiro could afford, so it was small but had a window overlooking the green outside and the patient was well looked after. He had placed him on his own family's private healthcare plan, despite the fact that they were of no relation to each other and the other man would probably never appreciate it. He paused before crossing the threshold, taking a moment to take it all in once again as he did every week.

The body of L lay hooked up to a variety of machines. An oxygen mask was strapped over his face and a heart monitor gently beeped, cutting through the silence that permeated the room. The man- _boy_ he had to remind himself, the doctors having confirmed that Ryuzaki was not, as he had thought, it his mid-twenties as Watari would have you believe, but just shy of twenty in the first place- was so much thinner now than he had been back in the Task Force headquarters if that were possible, having been in a coma for the past three months. His cheeks were hollow and the only thing sustaining him was the IV attached to his arm, supplying him with the necessary nutrients and vitamins needed to survive and a tube attached to his stomach in the hopes of providing anything else.

 _Perhaps they were right_ he thought as he made his way over to his normal chair. _Perhaps he will never wake up and this is nothing but wishful thinking on my part_. He had lied to the rest of the Task Force, stating that L had died in the hospital. What for, he wasn't sure, but something had told him that announcing that they had managed to re-start his heart but were unable to get him to regain consciousness would not be a good idea. There was something that just seemed off about the whole situation, and if he were honest, the timing caught him as well. _Maybe Ryuzaki was on to something. If the thirteen day rule really is fake, then Raito would still be under suspicion because it wouldn't matter, as would Misa… But I thought that we had agreed that Raito wasn't Kira?_ Soichiro shook his head, frowning. They had only cleared Raito's name because the thirteen day rule stated that if Raito was Kira then he would have died in that holding cell, but if it were fake, then the likelihood that Raito was Kira would increase dramatically. It was just too coincidental that L had been killed off right when he had announced that he would be testing out that theory using a criminal in another country.

But he hadn't come here to mope about what could have been. Soichiro didn't want to believe that his son was Kira, but he had learnt as a police officer to expect anything. He had been shocked at first, much like Matsuda, to find out what some people were really like behind their everyday facades, but now he had learnt not to judge people at first sight. If he had done that, he would probably be in the same distrustful boat as Aizawa, never sure where he stood with L.

"It's now been three months and a week since you died on us Ryuzaki. I still haven't told anyone about your whereabouts so you should still be safe." He paused in the beginning of his speech, wondering if Ryuzaki could hear any of this. He had spent the past three months keeping him up to speed with the Kira case, never revealing anything that hadn't been made aware already to the doctors. He was careful with how he phrased the sensitive information too, aware of the security cameras and passers-by. While the staff believed that L was some nephew of his, any spy working against L would know who he was, or what they were now up to, to a report back to Kira. "Raito's managed to move everything into his new apartment and insists that he pays everything for himself still. The Director's agreed to pay him a detective's wages despite his age so long as he helps out on other cases too. It's all been pretty quiet recently though, nothing new to add other than new names and faces to the numbers of dead criminals." There, nothing more than a proud father talking about his son moving away and getting a new job. "Sachiko's heartbroken of course, with her baby boy moving out so suddenly and I'll admit it's strange going home knowing that he's not coming back again, but it's a good kind of strange I think. Sayu's just upset that we won't let her have Raito's old room or come and visit his new apartment. I still think that he should be living alone rather than with Misa though." But Raito had flat out refused to have his girlfriend live elsewhere.

" _We're in love dad,"_ he had said, _"Can't you just be happy for us?"_ Strange how only a few weeks before everything had gone downhill he couldn't stand the girl- Soichiro had quietly understood why and couldn't fathom where this strange attraction had come from, if it could even be called that. _I know Raito's not too into lots of physical contact, but he never touches her in our presence. If they hug, it's always initiated by Misa and usually borne with the barest minimum of tolerance_. Soichiro had never pointed out these flaws to the others though, who thought it was sweet that Raito was supposedly so smitten with his new girlfriend, and one as lovely and famous as Misa Amane.

"We haven't recovered any of the digital files but I did find some boxes up in the records room the other day." He paused, again thinking about his strange reasoning behind not mentioning that to the rest of the team. He had stated that he was returning to the old building with the intent of finding if anything had been backed up on paper, but when he had physically _found_ the boxes, something had held him back from mentioning that to the team as well. There was this strange atmosphere now that Raito was running the task force, like he had to be careful as to what he said in his son's presence. If he were being honest with himself, lately he was more comfortable talking to the inanimate body of L than his own son. It was a bizarre turn of events he simply couldn't explain. "There was something funny about one of the boxes though. It looked more battered than the rest. I didn't want to open it in case there was something more personal in it, but I don't know if it's yours or Watari's." It felt strange to think of the man as Quillish Wammy, the entrepreneur who had opened an orphanage for young parentless geniuses. _L had probably loved it there_ he found himself thinking. The box was probably some personal belongings to the old man, most likely to do with the other children, but Soichiro didn't want to pry. If L had wanted them to know, had trusted them enough to tell them about the box, he would have done so. But he was a private person, and if the box really _was_ L's, he could imagine that he would be none too impressed with Soichiro's intrusion into something he clearly hadn't wanted any of them going through. After all, why else keep it locked up within the back-up room with all the hard copies of the Kira case notes? He sighed before continuing.

"I suppose that's everything that's happened since last week. Matsuda's making progress in some of the lower cases, which is good. He's got the aptitude to be a good detective when he puts that mind of his to good use." He smiled softly at that, thinking of all the good that he knew Matsuda was capable of. He, unlike some of his colleagues, was able to sympathise with both sides of a case, especially one in which the cause was grey rather than flat-out black and white, a skill he dearly hoped that Raito would develop. As passionate as he was, he seemed to believe that everything could be categorised as 'good' and 'evil' not realising that in some cases, Kira had been killing innocent people who had been wrongfully convicted or committed crimes for reasons other than because they could. Only the other day, Kira had murdered a man who was on death row in America, despite the protests that he was not only innocent of the crime he was accused of, but that he was being set up by either underground mafia groups or the government itself. "I'll be back as soon as I can. I'll try and bring some fresh flowers too, those look like they're dying." In truth, the flowers on the windowsill were dead, the stalks brittle and brown, all petals long since fallen. It was a wonder it had yet to be cleaned away by one of the nurses.

He had just gotten up and turned towards the door when a faint whisper made him stop in his tracks.

"Bring blood red roses. Those were Mitsu's favourite." He froze, hardly daring to believe that this could be real, after all this time. Only a little while ago he had been contemplating having L put to sleep permanently, almost in agreement that he was beyond help but could he really…? Hardly daring to believe his own ears, he turned to catch slits of grey staring woozily at him through lashes too long to be fully Japanese.

Carefully, slowly, like he was approaching a frightened animal, he crept closer to the barely conscious boy, hoping that this was not a false alarm, that this wasn't a product of his imagination and that it was truly happening.

"What did you say?" he whispered, close enough to observe every muscle of his face move, if it ever would. Slowly, as if they were moving through molasses, those familiar so-dark-they-were-practically-black grey eyes moved to settle on his own. Nothing seemed to register within them other than an age-old tiredness.

"Red roses were Mitsu's favourite…" And with that they slid shut once more, taking Soichiro's fears with them.

* * *

He returned the next day with the roses, blood red as promised, and a lie to his wife about going out to meet with a few old friends for a meal rolling off his tongue surprisingly easily. The doctor who had handled this whole affair was beaming at him, clearly as happy as Soichiro at this turn of events.

"He's been slipping in and out of consciousness, but that's only to be expected in a coma patient that has been out this long. But he's been able to stay awake for nearly ten whole minutes by now, and more often too, so he should wake at some point during your visit." Then the smile shifted from extremely happy, to professional. "Of course, we are not sure whether there has been any neurological damage of any kind. He doesn't seem to have any trouble moving, and he even expressed an interest in food a little while ago which is good, but there may be damage there that we cannot see." A pause and then, "Please be aware Mr Yagami, that it is quite common for people who have recovered from comas to have lost some portion of their memory." Soichiro only returned the polite smile, reassuring himself that that would never happen with L. The man had a photographic memory; he was sure, considering how fast he was able to recall _anything,_ even the idea that he might be suffering from amnesia seemed laughable.

"I'll keep that in mind," he said as he brushed past. The roses were beginning to wilt and he didn't want them to die as fast as the others. Perhaps he should visit every night, make sure they were watered properly. Roses tended to last longer in water than any other plant he knew, so why he had decided to buy lilies last time, he didn't know.

Room 102 seemed closer than ever compared to the night before, where it had seemed so far away. He would definitely be able to surprise the Task Force with this later, once L was stronger and more mobile, but right now he was simply happy that he hadn't given up on the young man, that he would be able to help the reclusive detective. That his son might finally have someone to relate to and befriend once again.

L was just coming around when he entered the room, carefully removing the dead stalks of the lilies and placing the roses in the vase with the intent of leaving to refill the vase with water when a tired voice behind him asked, "Who are you?" He turned to see a bleary set of dark grey eyes watching him, the boy having pushed himself up on shaky arms to lean weakly back against the mound of pillows behind his head. The oxygen mask was gone, replaced by tubes that entered through his nose instead, but the IV, monitors and feeding tube to his stomach remained.

"L, you're awake!"

"I noticed," was the wry reply, despite how tired he sounded and Soichiro was slightly taken aback by that. "But you haven't answered my question. Who. Are. You?" L's hand was hovering by the call button and, too late, Soichiro remembered the doctor's warning about amnesia. _But L's a genius_ he thought, before being reminded that not even genius' were impervious to flaws- after all his son was not the perfect person that he made himself out to be, even if Soichiro would never admit it.

"What's the last thing that you remember?" he asked cautiously as he made his way over to the sink, intending to give the roses a drink if only to distract himself from the shock that L just simply _did not know him_ anymore. L seemed to frown, it being the most human emotion that Soichiro had seen on his face.

"I remember getting on a plane to Japan with Watari… I think I was talking to Mitsu when we landed though, something about a killer murdering criminals and how she should be keeping her little band of miscreants in line for their own protection… She was joking around I think…" _That name again_ he thought, wondering just who this 'Mitsu' was to L and why all of a sudden he just couldn't stop talking about her.

"So you don't remember anything about the Kira case?" he asked, dread settling in the pit of his stomach. If he didn't remember anything _at all_ then their chances of catching Kira were decreasing all the faster. With no new leads, nothing to go on for the new investigation into Kira, there was a strong possibility that the murderer would, and continue to, get away with murder.

"Kira…?" L's eyes were wide, his lips slightly parted, as his face went white- or at least paler than it had been somehow. Soichiro, shocked, quickly put the roses down and pressed the call button for the doctors right away, not sure what was going through the detective's mind. "I… when was this?" He sounded bewildered and lost, not at all like the confident detective that he had been before the heart attack.

"We started the Kira investigation just over nine months ago," Soichiro said as gently as he could. "You've been in a coma for three months. You were… badly injured."

"Nine _months_ ago? I lost _nine months…_ Wait." L was looking around and the heart monitor was picking up on an increased heartrate. Soichiro could hear the running of nurses outside the room as they came to see what the matter with the patient was. "Where's Watari?" L had grabbed onto his arm with surprising strength as one nurse flung the door wide open, the doctor close behind her. "What happened to him?"

"Yagami-san, could I ask you to leave for the moment?" the doctor asked, seeming to take the whole situation in stride. "I need to check that our patient hasn't suffered from any neurological trauma." L just looked frantic as the nurse walked over, comforting smile on her lips and seemingly ready to deal with anything that L sent her way.

"Wait." L was looking right at Soichiro then, eyes beseeching. "Tell me your name." He sounded desperate, emotional and that was something that L just did not _do,_ Soichiro knew. Whatever had happened to L, it wasn't just the memories that had changed about him.

"Soichiro Yagami," he said as he left, leaving the roses that this Mitsu loved so much behind him and wondering where it all went wrong.

* * *

 **Yes, I know that it is unlikely that Soichiro Yagami would suspect Light but I always felt that he rushed Rem into killing off L and Watari, especially after L announced that he would test the thirteen day rule. I know why he did it, but it just seemed to coincedental to me and it didn't seem right that nobody in the show questioned it either. This is showcased later as well.**

 **I hope that you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a nice review. Thank you!**


	2. II: Gaps

**I'm back! Just want to quickly say thank you to everyone who favourited/followed this story and thanks especially to Hannibaland and LLawliet365 for reviewing this story.**

 **Just as a quick side note- yes the statement of L thinking 'Mr Yagami' in his head is correct. Unlike another character he won't use this out loud but as he grew up in Britain, and as I am English myself, I can imagine that he usually thinks in English a lot. I'm sorry if that offends you, but I have warned you beforehand. There is a reason for it- mainly cultural differences but not through L mostly- but I thought I would put it out there before any of you went crazy.**

 **Also, anything in Italics that is spoken is English.**

 **Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter and please leave a review to let me know what you think!**

* * *

 _Snow was falling outside of the orphanage as L stood with the strange man who had picked him up off the streets, gripping his hand despite the fact that he didn't know what to think of this man. He had asked again and again to go back to the street corner that they had made their home on to collect Mitsu but the man kept staring at him oddly, as if he thought that she was some kind of imaginary friend. He tugged slightly on the hand and the man smiled down at him softly._

" _What is it?" he asked softly._

" _We have to go back…" he murmured, staring up at the old red brick building. "Mitsu loves old buildings." She loved playing dress up and knights and castles and pretending to rescue people from dragons. He knew that she wouldn't want to miss growing up in this place that looked as if it had been built some centuries ago. It would be like growing up in one of her storybooks- the same storybooks that he had read through two years ago and gotten him into this issue in the first place._ If only I wasn't so smart… _he had thought as the man offered him the seat in the back of a limousine. He had introduced himself as Quillish Wammy, although that meant nothing to L at the time._

" _Who is this Mitsu?" the man asked, eyebrows drawing together in a frown. Clearly the same question asked more than three times merited at least a query into why that was so important._

" _She's my other half." In everything, she was his other half. Artsy, creative, fantastical, everything he wasn't. He couldn't leave her behind, he didn't want to become the living machine his parents had warned his teachers against when they insisted that he be moved up several classes. "He needs a normal childhood," mother had argued in the little office the woman had had. "He needs to stay with Mitsu."_

" _Other half?" The eyebrows were now buried in the slicked back mess of white hair on the top of the man's head as L nodded sagely._

" _Yes. Mother said we shouldn't ever be apart." The man looked troubled by that as he knelt down in the snow that was settling. Mitsu would love that too, she would be able to build snowmen to her hearts content here._

" _Where would we find this Mitsu?" he asked gently, sounding concerned for once._

" _On the corner of Winnow's Road, round the back of the dustbins of House 59. They didn't mind us sleeping there so long as we weren't there in the morning." They hadn't taken them in though, or offered them food, but L had come to expect that. They had been thrown out of their school after their parents had died, had been ignored by their so-called social worker who had turned up at the house perhaps once a week and no one had cared when the officers had turned up to repossess the house once the bills weren't paid after three months. They had had no money anyway and the pair had become quite adept at shoplifting in order to survive. Nobody thought anything of it when two small children decided to try and take sweets and they handed back only what was in their pockets if they were caught at all. Children were, after all, curious by nature and didn't understand the concept of 'paying' for things._

 _The man nodded and, standing, gently tugged him through the gates. "Does that mean you're going back for her?" he asked hopefully, staring up at the man._

" _We'll talk to Roger. He'll sort it all out." But a week passed as the snow continued to fall, collecting thicker every day, and there was still no sign of Mitsu._

 _It was so strange not having her around, like he had lost his right arm or his shadow. He kept turning to talk to her, to ask her how she had managed to be this quiet before being reminded every time that she was no longer there and that she was silent because she was likely in the alley still, shivering under inadequate blankets. After waiting for nearly five days he had wandered out into the garden, ignoring the other children who tried to get him to play with them and began packing snow into a ball, with the intent of trying to at least bring Mitsu's spirit back here. The result was a snowman that looked a little sorry for itself, but L had never claimed to be any kind of artist, even at six. He tried to imagine that Mitsu was here with him, praising the effort and then jumping into it to give it a face and hair and insisting that it would need a scarf to stave off the cold. That almost did it for him as he tried to keep the tears at bay. Why did it feel like he would never see his other half again?_

 _The snow had started to fall once again but he didn't want to leave this spot, to leave the shade of Mitsu behind. Night began to fall and the temperature dropped but still he sat there, allowing the cold to soak through his clothes and tug at his hair as he stared at the pitiful snowman, now gathering a fresh coating. Someone was shouting behind him, but he ignored them. He couldn't leave her, not on her own, not again._

" _L! L, you need to come in now!" Someone had a hold of his shoulder. "God, you're freezing!" Suddenly he wrapped up in something huge and warm, but he struggled as his saviour- Quillish Wammy who was surprisingly strong for someone his grandparents' age- picked him off the ground._

" _No! No, I have to go back! Mitsu!" He was screaming and crying and struggling but nothing he did would get her back, nothing he did would force the man to turn around and leave him to his misery without her._

" _What happened?" The second voice sounded alarmed as they crossed the threshold into the house, the other children gathered around beneath him. L didn't want to see their faces, didn't want to see the stares he had been getting ever since coming here and buried his face into Wammy's chest, sobbing for the part of his soul that he had lost._

" _Shhh, it's alright L," the man murmured as he walked off towards the sick bay. "There's someone here to see you."_

" _Lael! Lael what's wrong?" He knew that voice, but he was suddenly tired and cold. He was shivering violently, and for the first time in nearly a week he thought he could see Mitsu's face, the only person to know his real name in this place._

" _M-M-Mitsu?"_

" _Yes, stupid." She grabbed his hand, cold as it was, scrambling onto the bed that Mr Wammy had placed him on._

" _You're here…" She snuggled in closer to him, tucking the blankets in place._

" _Mr Wammy found me and said that you hadn't left me after all. It's cold outside, dummy." She smiled and he felt at home once more as he always did when she smiled. He smiled back and snuggled down with her._

" _I know."_

* * *

L woke up, confused as to what exactly was happening. He vaguely remembered a man named Soichiro Yagami coming to visit the day before, something about being in a coma for three months, but the most disturbing issue right now was the gaping hole in his memory that took up a whole _nine months_. Even more frustrating was that even the smallest things had him tired and he felt that he had slept enough already- naturally he preferred as little sleep as possible. It usually reminded him of unpleasant details, such as nearly losing Mitsu all those years ago. And that brought him right back to the issue at hand- he was in a foreign country, no idea what he had been doing in the country, no Watari and no Mitsu, with only the vaguest idea that something had happened to him that he _really_ didn't want to think about.

 _What is happening to me?_ He thought, trying to grope at memories that weren't there. The doctor, who had introduced himself as Doctor Yamada, had warned him not to try and force the memories back into life, but he didn't seem to understand how frightening it was to someone with a photographic memory to have lost even the smallest memory, let alone _nine months_ ' worth. Even worse than the lost memories was how uncomfortable he truly was, still being fed by the tube attached to his stomach and his breathing controlled by the nubs stuck into his nostrils. It had been mentioned that they would be removed soon, and L hoped that soon meant tomorrow as he couldn't stand them at all, although when he had tried to remove the breathing tubes, his chest had only tightened to the point where he had no choice but to put them back in.

There was a soft knock at the door and it opened to reveal that man from before. He didn't seem too bad, so perhaps he had trusted him so far as to let him see his real face, although since he only ever called him L, not his real name. That didn't matter though, since he had never trusted anyone with his real name.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, concern written into his features. _Why does he care so much?_ L wondered. _Most people hate me_. He shifted in discomfort on the bed, trying to find anything about this man in his head, but as usual drawing up a blank. Instead of answering he just shrugged, frustrated that he couldn't remember anything about the man other than the name he had mentioned on his previous visit. His gaze flickered towards the roses sitting innocently on the windowsill, vaguely remembering requesting them for Mitsu… Perhaps she might know something about this man? He knew that he would have called her or picked up the phone for her wherever he was, and so logically, she had to know _something,_ even if it wasn't much.

"Can I use the phone?" he asked, gesturing towards the one of the bedside table. Soichiro Yagami looked surprised but nodded.

"Go ahead," he said, settling into the chair next to him.

L didn't like the effort that it took to reach over and grab the receiver. It took even more effort, and a degree of discomfort due to the wires from the machines he was hooked up to, to dial her number, right there in his mind where it should be. _Unlike everything else_ … he thought as the phone rang once, twice… She picked up on third ring, caution evident in her voice.

" _Hello?"_ It was refreshing, not only hearing her voice but also his own native English.

" _It's me,"_ he managed and then winced at the definite e _xplosion_ on the other end of the phone.

" _Lael! My God I thought you were…! Jesus, never do that to me again!"_ He couldn't bring himself to be annoyed that she had used his name when she sounded almost close to tears with relief. " _Where the bloody hell have you been?!"_

" _I don't know."_ She must have been walking somewhere because he heard her stop, the sound of a car driving past in the background.

" _What do you mean, you 'don't know'?"_ She unnerved as much he did by the statement.

" _Exactly like that. I'm still in Japan but… I don't know something happened and I woke in a hospital yesterday and I can't remember anything of the past nine months."_

" _Nine months? Bloody hell."_ She must have started walking again, the sound of heels clacking against concrete loud to him. " _What is the last thing you remember?"_

" _Talking to you when we reached Japan for the Kira case."_

" _Ok,"_ she was still talking, but sounded calmer now, as if thinking it through. _"Anyone with you?"_

" _Someone named Soichiro Yagami?"_ He wasn't sure why he phrased it like a question but for all he knew, this man was actually a suspect and if anyone would know, it would be Mitsu. He made sure to keep her in the loop so that if anything like this had happened, his successors would be able to pick up right from where they had left off, as a back up to the hard copies and the digital files. _If any are left…_ Watari would have probably deleted everything by now.

" _Oh, him, Mr high and mighty,"_ she said and he could imagine her rolling her eyes. _"No, he's good and so are anyone named Matsuda, Aizawa and Mogi. I can't remember their first names though but I_ do _remember you said something about his son. The one with the funny name?"_ She paused a moment as she thought and another car passed behind her. Soichiro was watching him, looking a little lost, and L wondered how good his English was. Probably not that great but he filed the names away, wondering what his son was called that Mitsu would call it 'funny'. " _I think it's Light…? No wait, it just means that. Raito. Raito Yagami. He's the one you need to watch."_

" _His son's name means moon?"_ For some reason, L found that slightly ironic. _The light in the darkness indeed… Not that I know why that is._

" _Don't ask me, I didn't name him. From what I heard he sounds like a real stuck up prick."_ L resisted the urge to snort at that. Very rarely did Mitsu frame an opinion of his suspects, except perhaps for B but that… well that was understandable. _"Hey, I'm going to have to hang up in a minute, but I'll call you later ok?"_ She still sounded worried, as if she was scared as to what might happen if she hung up right now. He couldn't blame her. If he hadn't called for three months, he could imagine the state that she had gotten herself into. But right now… right now he wanted to see her face more than anything.

" _How soon can you come to Japan?"_ The question was out of his mouth before he realised he was going to ask it. He knew that she had a life of her own outside of his little world and that it probably wasn't fair to ask her to drop everything to come join him, but just then that didn't matter.

" _Japan? Probably on the first flight tomorrow. Got to sort things out here first."_ There was a pause. " _You'll survive until then?"_ He tried to pretend he didn't hear the undercurrent of fear in her voice. He knew that this was odd, him calling and sounding vulnerable but he had just s _cared_. Even if she wouldn't know anything about these people than he did, he just wanted to see a face that was still in his memory that he knew he could trust absolutely.

" _Yeah, that's fine,"_ he lied. He wanted her there _right now_ , even though she was on a different continent.

" _See you tomorrow afternoon then. Love you."_

" _Love you too."_ He was greeted with silence as she ended the call. Fighting the sudden urge to cry, he set the receiver back down and turned to face the one person who _was_ in the room. "Thank you."

"That's alright. I suppose this all very… overwhelming right now." Mr Yagami sounded very uncomfortable, as if he wasn't sure what he should truly be saying to him. As if it was strange for him to want to call people and speak to them in English. Then again, he was used to living with Watari who didn't mind what he did, whether it was call Mitsu or solving cases that were presented to him. Taking a deep breath in to control the urge to run as far away from this stranger as possible, he nodded.

"A little." There was a long silence as they sat trying to work out what the other was thinking.

"Do you…" Mr Yagami looked awkward. "Do you remember anything about the case?"

"No. I thought we established this." He didn't mean to sound harsh, but L hated repeating himself and there was just _nothing_ he could glean about this man other than the fact that Mitsu had perceived him as 'high and mighty', which probably meant that he held a lot of pride in his family and values.

"I'm sorry. It's just… strange, that's all." He paused, taking in a breath of his own. "Would you mind if I brought someone else from the Task Force with me?"

"Who?" Mr Yagami thought for a moment.

"Matsuda. Touta Matsuda. He's young and lets his emotions get the best of him sometimes but… he's a good detective." _Someone who probably idolises me_ L found himself thinking, wondering how he would deal with two people that were strangers to him but not the other way around. Personally, he didn't want anything to do with any of them, but the path to what had happened in the interim nine months that he had lost was not going to be found anywhere else. Besides, he was one of the people that Mitsu had stated was trustworthy and from the tone that Mr Yagami used to describe him, he was more than a little fond of the younger detective.

"I suppose it wouldn't hurt…" he mumbled, still unsure about any of this. Mr Yagami merely nodded, then looked at him curiously.

"If I may," he began, "who is Mitsu?" L started at that, looking straight at the man in shock.

"What..? How do you know that name?" he asked worried now that he might have mentioned her to them all. Although, he had asked, so perhaps it was inadvertent and the others weren't so rude.

"You asked for the flowers for her," he stated. "I'm sorry, it's none of my business. I shouldn't have asked."

"No, i-it's fine," he stuttered, unused to being caught off guard. He supposed he ought to get used to that, considering he didn't know how much this task force might know about him personally. "I thought that was a dream." Mr Yagami waited patiently while L wondered whether he should tell him the truth or not. _Does it matter?_ He thought. _She's coming to Japan tomorrow anyway. They'll find out eventually_. Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes for a moment, bringing forward the last memory he had of her, laughing and waving from the airport check-in, wishing him a nice flight. "She's… she's my sister." He opened his eyes to find Mr Yagami staring at him in shock.

"I didn't know you had a sister." He sounded surprised, like he hadn't thought that he had any family at all. L just shrugged and looked away.

"I don't like putting her in danger. She has nothing to do with my… my being L." She just knew, and that put her all the more in danger, especially as the pair had once had a penchant towards swapping identities when they were younger. And Watari had hated them dong that since he had preferred to keep his prodigy where he could see him, not so much because he kept tabs on him to prevent him from doing anything he considered _wrong_ , but rather to make sure that he wasn't currently in danger of being attacked by anyone he had made an enemy of as L. And there had been quite a few. "She'll be here tomorrow evening at the latest." Mr Yagami nodded at that, seeming to be used to information being sprung on him last minute by now.

"Where will she be staying?" he asked. L paused, thinking about that. Usually, he and Watari spent their time in various hotels, moving buildings every week, until they had exceeded all the hotels in a region and then moving into a rented house for a month or so if the case dragged out that long. Somehow, he didn't think that that had happened with this case, especially if it had gone on for six months even before his 'accident' that had led to the hospital. It was longest he had ever spent on a case, and something like that would mean that he would have set up permanent headquarters somewhere, especially if he had suspects and personal help from the NPA. _I think…_

"Did we have a permanent base somewhere?" he asked. It would have to be large enough for their equipment and security, have enough space for the Task Force and himself to live, along with holding cells for the suspects or spare rooms for any guests or extra help he might have called in. Probably a large building of some kind, most likely another skyscraper built with the combined funds from Wammy's House and part of the savings he had from previous investigative fees of past cases. Strangely though, Mr Yagami looked slightly uncomfortable.

"We did… But we moved out three months ago. The building was too big for us to maintain, and we didn't know who had access to it overall." There was a pause. "You weren't very clear on who the building belonged to." _He means he didn't know whether it belonged to me or Mr Wammy, so he didn't know if they had the right to remain in the building,_ he thought sadly, wondering how soon they had moved out of the building after the incident. _But that's useful because everything was signed in my name and that means that we can keep both myself and Mitsu a secret from anyone who we don't trust and just pretend that it's been turned into an expensive apartment block. Any case files the Task Force might have left behind will be there, and if they didn't know about the hard copies they'll be there too._ Finally, _something_ that would help him piece together the past nine months that didn't involve interrogating possible enemies.

"Most likely it would have been signed in my name due to the expenses coming partially from my bank accounts." _One of them anyway_ … "If you give Mitsu the address tomorrow, she'll sort out what needs to be done to maintain it." Mr Yagami looked slightly surprised.

"So we can move back in?"

"No!" L didn't know why that had come out so urgent, but he knew it was imperative that only Mr Yagami, Mitsu and this Touta Matsuda knew that he was alive. There was just something off about this whole situation that he couldn't put his finger on. Mr Yagami looked taken aback by his tone, and L bowed his head, hiding behind the black locks ( _they really need cutting, I must look like Mitsu)_. "Yagami-san, who is currently running the case right now?"

"My son, Raito." It was said with pride but there was an undercurrent that L couldn't quite put his finger on. Whatever it meant, Mr Yagami, consciously or not, knew that there was something off about this too. Odd, that they had chosen someone who was young and inexperienced over the older detectives to lead the case. That rang alarm bells in L's head, and he wondered if any of the other Task Force members had reservations about that too.

"How old is he?"

"Eighteen. Nineteen this August." _Do I really need to know what his birthday is?_ L wondered, but supposed that Mr Yagami was merely making polite conversation and that this was something that everyone did when they met someone for the first time. He wondered what had been so off about the boy that Mitsu warned him against him- other than being a 'stuck up prick'.

"Why is someone so young leading the head of the Kira case?" he asked, suspicious already about this.

"He's… well, you said something just before you were hospitalised about how he would be able to succeed you if you died. It seemed like the right choice at the time. Besides," Mr Yagami now sounded defensive, "Raito's helped the NPA on a number of occasions to help solve cases. He's doing fine." _Why on earth would I recommend someone outside of Wammy's House as my successor? We already have issues with Mello and Near, I don't need another contender to add to the mix. And if he_ has _taken over the role of L, what have they done about Eraldo Coil and Deneuve?_ He didn't ask that though, merely narrowed his eyes and shrugged, leaning back into the pillows. He was still tired, exhausted from this conversation and, honestly, he wanted nothing more than for it to be the next day so he could speak to Mitsu once again.

"May we continue this tomorrow Yagami-san?" he asked. "I'm tired."

"Of course," Mr Yagami nodded and L heard him stand to leave. "I'll be back tomorrow with Matsuda."

* * *

 **I don't know when Light's actual birthday is, so I just made it up, before anybody gets nitpicky. As to what will happen between Light and L as I was asked... that you'll have to wait for.**

 **Hopefully you have enjoyed this chapter and I will be back next week with an update. Please tell me what you think!**


	3. III: Mitsu

**Hey, so this chapter is slightly shorter than the others but there is big stuff happening in the next one, I promise! Thank you to everyone who read this and thanks to DelphiumSweets, Mika and Exogenesis Symphony Fm7 for their reviews.**

 **Anyway, here's a new chapter, please enjoy!**

* * *

Raito was concerned that something was going on behind his back, and, even more worryingly, that his own father was at the heart of it. Ever since L's death, the Task Force had been like putty in his hand, doing everything that he had said, working with him just as compliantly as if he truly were L, rather than a replacement. And that suited him just fine. If his plan as God of the new world was going to work, he needed them to do everything he said, even if it was following false trails, phony leads and spending more time at the NPA solving actual crimes than hunting down the fabled Kira. Every so often he would allow them a snippet of something actually to do with Kira, but overall, they were almost completely in his total control. Even the Director of the NPA was besotted with his charade of the perfect son and perfect detective.

" _It's so good, knowing that the new L is one of us!_ " he man had practically gushed, like some girl's stupid fantasy. It was annoying, having to put up with the man, but that would all be over soon. There would be a new era in place, where people would never have to live in fear of crime again, that they would all be safe so long as they followed the law. Kira was not a forgiving god, but he was just. He looked after his people far better than any god that had gone before, whether they were from any existing religion or from the dead world that Ryuk had once occupied. Currently, however, the Shinigami seemed far more intrigued in the way that Raito was having the NPA running around in circles.

"You would have thought that one of them would have noticed by now," the Shinigami commented, sounding delighted as he ate yet _another_ apple. Raito merely smiled and shook his head.

"They would never suspect me after that show I gave them three months ago." They had been so _understanding_ that Raito was so upset to have lost his 'friend'. Even Aizawa, who was naturally suspicious of what both he had Misa were up to, had been taken in by the charade and refused to believe that Raito had anything to do with L's death. It was satisfying to know that he would never be troubled with someone as irritatingly intelligent as L, although underneath that there was an inkling of something that Raito spent more time than he would like burying under Kira.

"Your father seems happier." Raito frowned at that, glancing towards the screen that showed his father talking outside with Matsuda. His father had asked the younger detective outside for a moment, claiming that he needed to speak to him over the latest murder case that the moron was involved in. Raito had assumed that it meant that he had done something wrong, but Matsuda looked as if he were positively _beaming_ with happiness, and he cursed the fact that he was yet to install sound on the cameras. They had been cheap, since he now had to pay rent and bills (an annoyance that he hadn't taken into account and the NPA could hardly afford to pay him what they had been paying L), but he had been putting a portion of his wages away to pay for updates in the security of the apartment every day. Soon, it would be perfect, but if he wanted to continue the charade of the perfect replacement of L, he would have to pay for the upgrades himself.

"He does…" Which was odd because lately his father seemed to have been sinking into a kind of depression. The signs of age had seemed to become ever more apparent, with his hair become greyer than ever and the lines in his face becoming more evident. Raito was also sure that he had been losing weight, compounded by the fact that his mother insisted he make sure that he was eating proper meals- apparently he had been skipping meals or not eating much when he did join the family for a meal. This sudden turnaround in his attitude seemed a little _too_ random that there was no cause behind it.

"Want me to find out more about what they're talking about?" Raito thought for a moment on that. Ryuk was not as helpful as Rem, so he had to have some ulterior motive behind offering to help, but then did Raito really need to know more about what they were talking about? It was a good thing that his father was looking happier. His mother would stop pestering him about him and he would stop moping about like L's death had hit him harder than they thought.

"No. Matsuda's probably done something right for once," Raito dismissed, turning back to his own case- one involving a rapist and three victims, easily solved.

"Suit yourself," Ryuk rasped, gulping down the last of his apple. "But you never know. It might be something interesting." And with that the Shinigami phased through the wall, out to listen in to what the pair were saying. Raito rolled his eyes, ignoring Ryuk's attitude. The Shinigami was growing bored of the continual but slow preparation of moving into the new world order, meaning that he jumped at the chance to hold something over Raito's head. There was nothing special about one of the members of the Task Force taking Matsuda to one side and giving him a talking to, whether in praise or, more likely, criticism of something he had done and this was just another one of those meetings. There was no need to find out what the idiot had done now, even if his idiocy was greatly helpful to keeping Raito out of suspicion.

Ryuk returned a few moments later, cackling. Raito rolled his eyes and resigned himself to the fact that the Shinigami wasn't going to leave him to finish up the notes for this case after all. Technically he was still in college, but Raito had quit after gaining the role of L and the university, recognising the letter of recommendation sent in from the NPA, had merely allowed him to leave with very little resistance. They had known that he was meant for greater things than dealing with the stupid roles of the college student.

"Satisfied now?" he asked, closing the laptop. The Shinigami glanced at him, eyes aglow and smile somehow stretched wider than ever.

"Oh yes. That was… very _interesting_. Hyuk, hyuk!" Raito scowled at the rasping laughter but dismissed it as Ryuk being Ryuk. The Shinigami was nothing more than an annoyance anyway.

* * *

Soichiro Yagami was not sure what to expect as he stood outside the arrivals gates at Haneda airport, wondering why on earth he had agreed to pick up somebody he didn't know. L had informed him, over the phone, that he would know her the moment he saw her, or if not she would know him. As disturbing as _that_ was, he was still confused as to why he had agreed to this. Surely the girl would know her way around Japan as well as L had? That would mean that she was perfectly capable of taking herself to the hospital but perhaps L had simply wanted police protection for her. After all, he had mentioned that she had nothing to do with his being L.

He had been waiting for the last half an hour, wondering what flight she would have been on and from which country. L had been rather vague about that- the only answer he had gotten was that it wasn't Japan. There had been two international flights which had landed in the last half an hour- one from Vancouver and the other from Paris, both possible places that L's sister may have been in. Since he didn't know anything about her he couldn't be sure what she had been doing in either of those cities, and he wouldn't get an answer from L. Then again, L might not even know since he had no recollection of the past nine months, three of which he had been in a coma.

"Mr Yagami?" The voice was soft and came from right next to him. He jumped in surprise and turned to find a girl who seemed to be the exact replica of L but female. He blinked, trying to work process that as she waited patiently, one eyebrow raised. She had the same deep, dark grey eyes that L had, same facial structure, same thick black hair and the same dress sense of blue jeans and baggy white shirt (in fact Soichiro was sure that that was just one of L's white shirts, worn with a belt around her waist to make it more feminine). There were slight difference- her lips were slightly more pronounced, her hair reached her waist rather than her shoulders, she was wearing black boots rather than trainers and of course, she was a girl with everything that entailed. He couldn't say that she wasn't pretty, there was a certain level of exotic charm to her that had seemed muted in L, and she was certainly missing the trademark bags under her eyes that her insomniac brother held, but there was still something… _off_ about her, the same sense of wrong that Soichiro felt in the presence of L. He wondered how long she had been standing there as he took her all in and hoped that he didn't come across as some kind of creepy older gentlemen.

"Uh, you must be Mitsu," he said, trying to smile through how awkward he felt. The girl nodded her head, one hand holding on to a plain red suitcase, the other clutching at a bag slung over her shoulder.

"That's me. Ryuzaki said you would be here to meet me," she stated but Soichiro didn't bother asking how she knew. Now that L knew he could use the phone, he had probably been making several calls to who knew what kind of people, trying to figure out the last nine months. Not that he could blame him for the anxiety- now was not a good time to be without your memory when caught in the middle of a serial killer case.

"This way," he said, leading her out of the hospital. The new setup with Matsuda meant that it wasn't so suspicious if one of them disappeared for a bit every other night, but it also meant he would have to cut back on the time spent with L, especially with his sister now in tow. Soichiro didn't know whether that was a good or a bad thing. He wasn't exactly fond of L, not in the way that he was of Matsuda, but he wasn't blind to the younger man's ( _boy's_ ) feelings either, buried deep down as they were. He wanted to help him, he just didn't know how.

They left the airport and almost immediately got stuck in a traffic jam. L had instructed that Mitsu be taken straight to the old headquarter building, which was closer to the airport than the hospital (the hospital being in walking distance of the building, meaning that she wouldn't need a lift every time she wanted to visit), but the route took them through the busiest parts of Tokyo and Soichiro wasn't happy about being stuck in a car with someone apparently even _less_ talkative than L.

"Where were you coming in from?" he asked as they inched through the traffic, slow as molasses.

"Paris." She offered no further information without prompting, although Soichiro figured that with the way she was dressed, it probably hadn't been Vancouver, not with the time of year anyway.

"What were you doing there?" In honesty he was both curious and just making polite conversation but Mitsu didn't seem to want to be open to that.

"Art." There was a long silence as Soichiro wondered what he could say to that. He wasn't all that interested in art himself, but she didn't seem to care. Instead she was merely fiddling with a pencil from her bag, not seeming the least bit jetlagged although he supposed that she was probably as adept at hiding her feelings as her brother was.

"How old are you?" he asked instead, changing tact. Mitsu just shrugged.

"Nineteen." He blinked at that. Doctor Yamada had mentioned that L was nineteen and the similarities were startling but surely… surely L would have mentioned that he had a _twin_ sister, rather than just 'my sister'. Then again, he hadn't known about Mitsu's very existence until yesterday, so he supposed that actually L _wouldn't_ have mentioned it. He certainly didn't trust Soichiro on any level, even less than before actually, but he seemed to tolerate him on the assurances that his sister said that he was at least _trustworthy_. L didn't really seem to trust anybody.

It took them an hour to reach the old headquarters, a journey that should have taken them only twenty minutes. Most of the journey had been spent in silence, with Mitsu eventually digging into her bag and pulling out a rather expensive looking iPod and sticking headphones in. Unlike most teens, she either wasn't listening to it too loudly, or they were very good headphones because Soichiro couldn't even hear a hint of what she might have been listening to. Upon arrival she didn't even wait for him to open the door for her, instead flinging the car door open like it disgusted her, pulling herself out of the car and stretching like a cat with a small moan.

"Urgh, I am _never_ doing that again. Walking next time," she stated before heading towards the boot to collect her luggage. Soichiro waited patiently for her at the doors before locking the cars and leading her inside.

"It's not as clean as it could be," he started but Mitsu didn't seem to hear him. She was more interested in the type of security there was and the way in.

"Reinforced doors, cameras are still rolling so that's good… fingerprint scanners, I wonder…" she pressed her hand against the panel and it bleeped, allowing her entrance. She beamed back at him. "Bless Ryuzaki, he thinks of everything." With that she practically bounced into the building, glancing about her as they travelled further up the building. There was never any bills sent to the building, so thankfully everything still worked, although the elevator didn't seem as efficient as before, but that may have just been Soichiro's imagination. They reached a floor that held only living apartments and Mitsu flung her bag onto a sofa before turning around. "So, what other tricks are there around here?"

"I'm not sure… The main work room has metal detectors and sensors that prevent you from entering unless authorised and there are cameras in practically every room as far as I know- even the bathrooms." Mitsu nodded like this was perfectly normal, leaving Soichiro to wonder how on earth the pair had been raised. "Other than that I would say ask L or Watari but…" he trailed off, knowing it was hopeless.

"But L wouldn't know and Watari's as dead as a doornail so we can't ask him," Mitsu said bluntly, hardly any emotion in her voice. She glanced around once more before leaving the room. "Coming Mr Yagami?" At least she had the manners to ask, rather than to just expect to be followed like her brother.

"What are you looking for?" he asked as Mitsu tapped a fingernail against the elevator panel, as if wondering which floor to head to next.

"I need to look through my brother's archives, see how much he got up to backing up. It should be up to date to the day before he died but if not…" For the first time she actually looked worried and he wondered how often her life or Ryuzaki's had been put in danger. "If not we have a problem."

"You want to take it to him to see if it will jog his memories?" Mitsu snorted as the elevator appeared and shook her head.

"Fat chance of that- most likely those are gone for good. There's only a twelve percent chance he'll get them back in time to solve the case and twenty percent chance he'll get them back at all in any capacity. Now," she paused as he entered after her, "what floor?"

"Nineteenth. There are boxes of files in there." _And the one mysterious box that I didn't open. I should probably tell L about that but not her. I don't know enough about her yet to trust her with that information._ He wasn't sure why he was being so cautious, perhaps it was just the knowledge that he was under constant observation once more that he naturally started to retain that kind of information.

They took the journey down to the nineteenth floor (Mitsu had chosen a room in the thirtieth floor right underneath the roof for some reason) and Mitsu began to paw through the boxes carefully, after rolling her eyes at the arduous security to even get _inside_ the room, reading the stamps on each one and nodding to herself. Finally satisfied, she turned back to Soichiro and gave him a worn out smile.

"Everything's here as it should be. Some of these are irrelevant- old files Ryuzaki no doubt kept around a reference for any possible copycat killings." She shoved a couple of boxes aside and nodded at the rest. "These are all for the Kira case, but the last three need sorting and I'll probably have to call in a specialist to see how much footage or data that was saved on that last day can be salvaged. Knowing Watari, he put in some kind of failsafe only a Wammy's kid would know."

"Wammy's?" He remembered the brief article that had named Watari as really being Quillish Wammy, the head of an orphanage and charity for poor impoverished children- although the orphanage was designed specifically towards genius children. He hadn't been surprised- L wasn't exactly simply _just_ smart. Mitsu didn't deign him with an answer and began rifling through some of the newer boxes.

"Hm, I think Watari put these together, they're not filed like Ryuzaki _at all_ …" She then pushed them aside and reached for a familiar battered box that Soichiro had almost forgotten about in her side-tracking.

"Wait!" he cried, pushing her hand away. Startled, she recoiled backwards a moment before frowning.

"What?" she asked irritably. "Has he put some kind of grenade in there now or something?" Soichiro stared at her, confused and Mitsu rolled her eyes, turning back to the box. "Relax, I just want to make sure it's all here. He'll freak if something's gone missing again."

"What is it?" he asked as she carefully began to poke around inside it, careful to angle herself so he couldn't see what she was doing.

"None of your business." Satisfied with its contents she nodded and stood up, stretching to relieve her muscles from leaning over all of the boxes. "Well, I'm very tired and would quite like to have a nap before seeing my brother all laid up in hospital, so if you wouldn't mind?" She gestured towards the door and Soichiro obligingly left as she shut the door, the automatic locks engaging behind her.

"Call if you need any help setting up," Soichiro offered, pulling out his phone in order to give her his number but she just smiled and shook her head.

"Thanks for the offer Mr Yagami but I don't think I will. Besides," she said, holding a hand up, "all the numbers of the Task Force are written down in your personal files back there. I'll look them up if I need help." Soichiro just nodded, tucking his phone away. Of course, he shouldn't have expected anything less. The elevator came for him and the doors were just closing when Mitsu's hand suddenly reached out and stopped them. "Oh, before I forget," she said, her tone neutral but her eyes deadly serious. "None of this goes back to your new headquarters. It stays between the four of us. Anyone else included apart from you and Matsuda, the pair of you disappear. _Quietly_." With that she let the doors shut, leaving Soichiro to the cold feeling running up his spine.

 _I think I was afraid of the wrong twin_ he found himself thinking on the ride down to the ground floor and his car.

* * *

 **I apologise that L never made an appearance in this chapter, but Raito did! So now that we have more characters in places where they should be, things are going to get a bit complicated from now on. Just for those who might have a fit because I didn't use any prefixes, instead adding 'Mr' in front of Yagami, this is because Mitsu, while perfectly capable of speaking Japanese, is English and has not spent as much time as L studying other countries and their specific cultures. This will be explained later on, but for now I just wanted to explain why there is a difference between Mitsu and L.**

 **Anyway, I hope that you like this chapter. I thought it was odd that L, with all his resources and nice sparkling new skyscraper wouldn't back up his files elsewhere, and I can imagine that, like in this story, he would have created hard copies, external hard-drives etc. that wouldn't have been affected by Watari wiping the system. And yes, those 'specialists' will be appearing very soon ;)**

 **Please leave a lovely review, they help to inspire me.**


	4. IV: Old Notes and New Beginnings

**Hey guys, sorry this is slightly later than usual, there were technical difficulties involving internet connection. Anyway, thank you to Exogenesis Symphony Fm7 for being the only person to review this week, although thank you also to all those who favourited/followed as well!**

 **To answer you question, and to clarify for everyone else, L is 19 in this story (I did warn that he would be aged down in this) and so (obviously) is Mitsu while Raito is 18, as he would have been in the manga by now. If there is anything else, don't be afraid to ask, although if it is spoiler worthy for this story, then the answer will probably be a bit vague.**

 **Moving on, I hope that you enjoy this chapter and please tell me what you think!**

 **Just as a side note:** "words"- Japanese, _"words"_ \- English and **_"words"_** \- French

* * *

 _The boy in the corner had red eyes and everyone was avoiding him like he was diseased. L wondered why. Other than the red eyes he was nothing special, merely a boy roughly the same age as himself and Mitsu. But the others were taking great care to move around him, some even pressing themselves into the opposite wall to get as far away from him as possible. L glanced over at him again, taking in the curly black hair and bright red eyes once more. Nope, still not seeing much wrong with him, other than the odd tendency to glance above a person's head as they passed. Probably some kind of quirks- lots of the kids at Wammy's House had quirks so he wasn't concerned by this one._

 _He glanced to his left where Mitsu was watching too, eyes bright. She wouldn't care about odd colouring- heck, their own was odd enough that even_ they _had been avoided like they were the devil incarnate for a while. But L's intelligence had soon put them in their place along with Mitsu's natural brazen nature._

" _What do you think?" he whispered toward her. She glanced towards him, her mouth turned down in a pout._

" _I think everyone's being mean." With that she flounced over to the boy, skirts bouncing along with her skipping steps. It was strange, considering they had spent most of their most recent time wearing similar clothing, right up until Roger had gotten fed up with mixing them up and insisted that Mitsu wear skirts all the time, and L jeans. It seemed drastic action to take against two seven year olds but who was he to question Roger?_

" _Hi, my name's Mitsu. What's yours?" The boy looked genuinely shocked that she had come to talk to him. L approached much more sedately, offering him a comforting smile._

" _You don't have to answer. She demands everything," he stated as Mitsu mock scowled at him._

" _Hey!" The boy giggled at that and uncurled from the little ball he had formed, eyes flickering to just above his head. L glanced up wondering what was so special in the air above his head but then shrugged it off. Quirks, as usual._

" _My name's Karabas Bretznev," he said, voice still thick with a Russian accent. He had clearly only been in the country for a small amount of time, but he had the feeling that their new friend wasn't fully Russian- his skin was too pale, almost as pale as theirs. "Call me B."_

" _Your mother named you after an evil puppet master?" Mitsu asked, surprised. B blinked, surprised that she even knew that story. L supposed that he was yet to learn that they were forced to learn three or four languages depending on their IQ from the moment they entered Wammy's. He had to learn five, but Mitsu only had to learn three- Mr Wammy had stated that he didn't think it fair to force her to compete with her brother when her talents clearly lay elsewhere. Personally he thought that was just a long winded way of saying that compared to the others she was stupid. It wasn't her fault that academics were not really her thing, although she was far from stupid in reality._

" _Why do you think I want to be called B?" There was a hint of annoyance in his voice but Mitsu was impossible to discourage. She merely smiled._

" _Funny. I always liked that character." B blinked again, thrown and L resisted the urge to laugh. He resisted the urge to do a lot of things lately, but at least this time had a reason._

" _I'm L." He wasn't allowed to use his real name anymore. Only Mitsu ever said it anymore, usually in the middle of the night when neither could sleep and they crept into the same bed. Roger didn't mind- they weren't old enough yet for it to be a problem but he was warned that in the next three years, he could expect that to change. L didn't want to think about that and three years was a long time to him. B's eyebrows twisted together in a frown but he didn't say anything. L would have said something more but Mr Bourgious stuck his head around the classroom door and scowled at him._

" _ **L, what are you doing? You are supposed to be with Miss Lang in the library!**_ _" L couldn't wait until he was old enough to not be summoned from whatever he was doing at the whim of his tutors. The house had been excited at finding his intelligence higher than many other children in the orphanage and he was barely allowed to sleep with how hard they worked him, well into the evening and sometimes through and past dinner. Mitsu looked upset at the calling but B surprisingly took her hand._

" _It's ok. I'll look after your sister for you." He smiled at L and L was struck suddenly by the similarities of them all. Dark haired, pale skinned and thin lanky frames. The only thing that separated B from them was the red eyes but L preferred to think that they were cool more than anything. Unique, much like the person that owned them. Roger appeared at the end of the corridor, looking shocked._

" _L, M, what are you doing here? L you're supposed to be in the library with Miss Lang and M you're late for English in classroom 2B. Off with you!" He waved a hand as if that would get them to move faster. "B, let me show you to the room that you'll be sharing with A…" Roger was ferrying B away, pulling the pair apart. Mitsu looked heartbroken, but determined._

" _Fine. See you on the other side B!" L grinned and he could hear B laughing as he and Roger turned the corner. Her face then fell as she looked at him sadly. "See you when you're finished?" He sighed._

" _See you then," he murmured, watching as she turned and ran off down the corridor. He then made his way to the orphanage's library where the strict librarian was, waiting with about six different volumes, written in six different languages._

" _Nice of you to turn up," she sniffed as if he had intentionally been late. Honestly, he had been so busy these past few weeks, months and years, his timetable, full as it was, was shoved to the back of his mind but never forgotten. He knew he was supposed to be elsewhere, he just couldn't bring himself to care. He had seen so little of Mitsu this week, he had almost forgotten what her face looked like when it wasn't bathed in moonlight- a point in which he was thankful for the photographic memory he had been born with._

" _What is today's lesson?" he asked politely, settling at the table. Miss Lang sniffed again and dumped one of the books in front of him._

" _Crime and punishment…"_

* * *

For once, L woke slowly, something that was unusual for him. Normally, he would be awake instantly due to his being a light-sleeper, even after recovering from his coma, but perhaps the overly exuberant Matsuda had worn him out. The man didn't seem bad- in fact he was almost exactly what he had expected. A young, awe-struck young man who would endear even the most hard-hearted officer to him, although he supposed that some would find that more annoying rather than sweet. It was more Mitsu's job than his to deal with people like him but that didn't mean that he didn't _like_ the man- more he thought that he could do with toning it down a little and at points acting more like the detective he was rather than a love-struck teenager.

Mitsu had called the previous day he had been awake to state that she was in the country, but on her way to bed. Apparently she looked too awful to be seen in public which L took to mean that she was actually just dressed for her art projects rather than any kind of fashion disaster. Mitsu didn't generally care about such a thing and found it frustrating when anyone suggested it so. Once more he found himself alone in the hospital room, but at least they allowed him to eat his own food now and had even helped him attempt moving about. L wanted to be out of the hospital as soon as possible and the removal of the feeding tube had been one step closer towards that. Forcing mobility on his heavy and disused muscles may not have been the medically approved version of how treatment ought to be taken, but L had been adamant. The sooner he was up and about, the happier he would be.

He was almost regretting that action now. Three months of lying immobile on a hospital bed had seized all of his carefully honed muscles up, leaving them weak and lethargic, his movements clumsy. Just taking three steps to reach a wheelchair to take himself to the bathroom (there had been absolutely _no way_ he was using the bedpan) almost exhausted him too, probably contributing to the now slightly hungover feeling left over as dregs of a deep sleep. He wondered when Matsuda or Mitsu might show up again, or if he would have to settle for Mr Yagami or even- heaven forbid- his son, although that was highly unlikely considering Mitsu's hatred of the boy. He didn't know why or what had led to this (he felt certain that the pair had never physically met- perhaps they had chatted over Skype when he was out of the room?), only that nothing good would come of meeting this Raito Yagami.

He sighed, wondering why on earth he had decided that coming to Japan was a good idea. _Wait, no I didn't. Watari mentioned the beginning of murders in Japan and your interest was piqued by the interesting effects on the victims… You thought that for a serial killer they were too clean._ And they had been compared to the others. Serial killers and mass murderers tended to leave behind messy remains of their victims, usually left there by hand in grisly detail, with a few gory clues thrown in for good measure. They all thought of themselves as above the law and loved playing cat and mouse games until they turned into the mice. The reason that L was so flummoxed by Kira however, was that he didn't seem to have either a hands on approach or messy kills. In fact, other than a few car accidents, the worst were the suicides, mainly because it involved shooting themselves or jumping off high buildings. The rest had been heart attacks.

It seemed odd that this serial killer was so different to the others. While no two psychopaths thought the same, there was a strange sense of familiarity to these kills, something cold-blooded and calculated that he hadn't seen since the LA murder cases and B's rampage. _After he finally lost it_ he thought, trying to suppress that memory altogether. The only reason that B hadn't gotten the death sentence for his crimes was because L had spoken up himself against that decision, stating that he was clearly delusional but it would be a shame to lose a brilliant mind such as B's. There would be no dragging it back from the cesspit it had fallen into, but there was still traces of his friend in there, still small motions that their friendship had not ended with A in the bathtub… _Not helping right now._ He needed to focus.

Unfortunately, this was not to be. A soft knock interrupted his musings and Mitsu stuck her head around the door, grinning broadly, a bag filled with food slung over her wrist. She was dressed shamelessly in a short tight-fitting black dress and heels and looked as much the same as the last time he had seen her, although a little more worried.

"Hey," she said as she set the bag down on the mobile table slung over the bed. Useful, in that it let him use the laptop provided in the room to surf the internet, looking up articles on the past nine months, but this was where he would get the answers he was looking for.

"Hey," he smiled awkwardly and focused instead on the bag. "What did you buy?"

"Oh, the normal titbits. Cake, chocolate etc. and some green tea KitKats, but they're sadly smaller than the ones in England." He smiled, remembering that KitKats had been her favourite treat for a while when they were still at Wammy's House, all those years ago.

"How much?" he asked and she shrugged.

"Half the length and only two bars instead of four," she stated, picking at her nails. "But I didn't come all this way to talk about the various flavours of KitKat you can buy in Japan."

"I know but you know what hospital food is like," he said. She spared him a grin before her face dissolved into worry.

"You scared me. I thought you were dead when I heard the news that Mr Wammy had been killed."

"I'm sorry," he said because that was all he could say right now. He didn't know what had happened to kill Quillish Wammy, and he certainly had no idea as to what had happened to himself. He hoped to leave here and find out as soon as possible. Mitsu's face softened a little as she shrugged.

"It's not your fault. It's whoever put you in a coma," she stated, before her face darkened. "I can't find any records past the 18th February. I was going to call Matt in to see whether he could salvage the footage from that month, but _apparently_ he and Mello decided to bugger off somewhere and the orphanage 'doesn't have the resources' to get them back."

"Have you tried contacting them yourself?" he asked. Matt and Mello may not have been all that enamoured with the Wammy's House system, but they had been friendly enough with Mitsu and L themselves to have offered them back up contacts if they ever 'disappeared'. It had probably helped that they had both contributed to the orphanage's less than happy view on their attitudes towards anybody (suffice to say neither he nor Mitsu had been allowed near a motorbike while they were in a hundred metre vicinity of them). Mitsu looked slightly affronted at the thought that she hadn't tried that.

"Course I did. They said that they would be here in a week, so you've got plenty of time to kick back and relax." He raised an eyebrow at that.

"While a serial killer continues killing people?"

"Well, Kira's no B," she pointed out. "Personally he's not much of a serial killer if he's getting other people to do his dirty work for him. Probably some upstart git with a perchance for dramatic flair and an ego the size of the moon."

"Most probably," L said, his lips quirking as he resisted the urge to smile at her stuffy tone. After the delightful scenery B had left them to clear up, the sight of Kira's murders were like a walk in the park and Mitsu tended to judge how good a serial killer one was compared to his work. "Doesn't want to actually get blood on his hands."

"Pfft, bet he hasn't even been to a serial killer's murder site. That's why his kills are so lame. I mean supernatural heart attacks aside, how is killing people naturally creative?" Mitsu was shaking her head. "It's like he's got all brains and no creativity."

"Considering his followers are trying to start a new world order, he's not exactly original either." She grinned in response just as there was a knock on the door. Sighing, Mitsu went to the door to open it for Doctor Yamada, who was waiting on the other side with the nurse who had brought L his dinner. The smell was about as appetising as ever.

"Hello Yagami-san," he said with the same smile that most doctors had in place (after so many weeks listening to the same address, L was no longer surprised by the alias anymore). "I'd like to run through some basic checks if that's alright?" The fact that the demand was presented as a question didn't fail to cover up that he wasn't taking no as an answer. L just shrugged, glancing towards Mitsu who just raised an eyebrow at the man's commanding nature. In all honesty Doctor Yamada would not have been a bad police officer, but L supposed that he had to be able to talk down the authorities on occasion and so shouldn't be too surprised.

The checks were the same as every night. The doctor took his pulse and monitored his breathing by listening to his chest as if that would tell him any differently from the monitors that already did that and other boring check-up procedures that L had been forced to sit through at any doctor's meeting. Eventually he seemed to decide that he was doing well enough to be able to eat and left them in peace once more. Glancing at the time, L supposed that either Matsuda would do a return soon or Mr Yagami might come back to visit instead.

"That looks amazing," Mitsu said flatly, staring at the bowl that had been set in front of him. It was a soup of some kind, with noodles and some kind of meat floating in it, although L knew already that it was bland. Most of the food he was forced to eat was that way in order for his stomach to get used to processing food once more after basically being given nutrition through the feeding tube and IV's. He knew the science behind it but for someone with a raging sweet tooth it was still disappointing.

Exactly twenty minutes after the intrusion and most of the soup was gone (he honestly couldn't choke down the last few mouthfuls of the bland soup any longer), Matsuda crashed into the room, a smile on his face. Mitsu looked up from the roses Mr Yagami had brought in that she had been admiring while L finished his dinner ( she insisted that she would make herself something back at her apartment), looking only slightly surprised at the semi-violent way Matsuda had made his entrance. In fairness, L supposed that the man had tried to open the door normally but, considering the way he had practically fallen through the door, had tripped halfway through. He coloured instantly upon spotting Mitsu, as if the idea that a girl in his room was a little awkward. _I really wonder what people must have thought about me…_

"Oh, um, if I was interrupting anything…" Matsuda said, rubbing the back of his hand. "I-I didn't know you would have, err, company." He looked awkward as L and Mitsu glanced towards each other, Mitsu having wrinkled her nose slightly.

"Eww, gross. He's my brother and I was just visiting," she stated flatly and Matsuda blushed even more, clearly embarrassed about it all already.

"No, no! That's not what I meant! I mean… it's obvious you're related…!" His stuttering continued for a few more minutes before L decided to put him out of his misery.

"I think we could tell what you thought but I can assure you that Mitsu is my twin sister and not my love interest." Matsuda coughed awkwardly, face red and looking as if he wished the floor would open up and swallow him.

"Oh, um, hi. I'm Matsuda," he said, not looking quite sure what to do. "I'm sorry if I offended you."

"No, it's refreshing not being mistaken as the great L for once," she said, flashing a smile. "You'd be surprised by how often that happens."

"Really?" Looking relieved that the conversation had moved elsewhere, Matsuda attempted to carry on down that vein of thought instead.

"Yeah, whenever we were in the same country," she said. L rolled his eyes.

"It was a long time ago. It hasn't happened as recently as she makes it out to be."

"How long ago was that?" L had decided at the last visit that questions that he would probably have considered invasive to his privacy before the amnesia were just a part of Matsuda's natural curiosity. Half the time it seemed that he didn't realise what he had said was offensive or upfront but L could see how the man had potential. He wasn't afraid to ask awkward questions, even if he did leap to conclusions at times and stopped once it was made aware to him that it was either inappropriate or not working. This time, he decided that it wouldn't matter if they revealed a tiny amount of their past. After all, he was trusting them to keep Mitsu a secret, as well as watching out for Mr Yagami's elusive son who he really needed to talk to Mitsu about.

"Probably about nine years ago," he said before Mitsu chimed in with her own piece.

"Before puberty and the odd attraction to the opposite sex." She paused and glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and flashed him a grin. "Mostly at least." Matsuda looked embarrassed again at the realisation that Mitsu had no filter between what was decent and indecent, something that would probably get her in trouble far more often if her brother hadn't been L.

"Forgive her, she doesn't have a filter between her brain and her mouth."

"And you have a filter too many," she quipped, as sharp as ever on comebacks. Matsuda just gave an awkward smile.

"Have you been updated yet on the recent Kira news?" he asked, clearly eager to move away from the subject of teenage puberty and undercurrents of cross-dressing.

"Not yet. Only what I've found on the internet, which is interesting and vast enough," L stated but Matsuda just nodded.

"I suppose catching up on nine months' worth of news is a lot to take in," he said. "You won't have missed much though if you decide to return to the case. We don't exactly move very fast without you and its like Kira's keeping on the quiet at the moment." Mitsu snorted in the corner.

"Or he's playing you like paper dolls…" she muttered quietly but L ignored her.

"What's Raito Yagami like?" he asked instead. His father had been rather vague on the details other than 'a brilliant detective' and other praises that came with being a father, and while Matsuda tended to dote on people he deemed smarter than himself, at least he was another first hand source. Matsuda looked delighted at the question, as if he had been hoping that he would want to know about him.

"You remember him?"

"No, but I know that it's suspicious how he managed to get into the position he is in now. Most likely I didn't trust him."

"No-" Matsuda started but Mitsu cut him off.

"You didn't. He was your number one suspect and honestly, just reading through some of your notes and how he's ended up where he is now, I'm not going to say you're wrong." Matsuda frowned, an expression which looked distinctly foreign on his face, like he didn't get annoyed often.

"Hey, Raito cleared his name! He's a great detective and he's almost as thorough and good as you were! He was the top student in school, probably the whole country and would have been the top student in the To-Oh University if he hadn't decided to pick up the case when you weren't able to continue to search for Kira!" he practically shouted but L raised an eyebrow.

"He was the main suspect in a murder case who was almost as smart as I was and could have become Japan's number one inhabitant, and yet decides to take a job as the world's most elusive detective where the people who would pay his wages won't do so because they think I'm dead? And how exactly did he clear his name?" L asked sceptically. Mitsu was staring at Matsuda too, nibbling on a green tea KitKat.

"There was a rule in the Death Note the stated that if a name wasn't written in the book after 13 days, the person who owned the book would die. You imprisoned Raito for 50 days with no access to anything and then chained him to yourself for nearly three months before releasing him again." L stared at Matsuda critically, wondering if he needed to call in a doctor for him, but the man looked sane, if a little worked up. Kind of how B had when insisting that he could see names and lifetimes above a person's head. Instead he opted for playing along, despite not being entirely sure what he was going on about, but it all still sounded suspicious.

"Could one of these rules have been fake?" he asked. Matsuda frowned and shook his head but L continued. "Was I going to test this thirteen day rule to be sure?" That was when Matsuda paused, as if thinking that through.

"Actually… yes, you were. You announced it right before Kira struck." _A heart attack that the hospital was able to resuscitate me from only minutes after announcing that I would test this rule… Surely Kira would be smart enough to follow through on the results though if he truly were this Raito Yagami or was he simply so sure that the Task Force was his that he would merely drop the issue and take what appears to be rules from a questionable source as legitimate?_ Mitsu seemed to be thinking along the same lines.

"Has Raito actually proposed following through on that test?" she asked.

"What? No!" Matsuda said, seemingly shocked. "If it were true then the person who wrote the name would die thirteen days later!"

"And if it were false not only would Raito Yagami be a suspect once more, but the evidence would be there that he most likely faked the rule to clear his name and continue his work as Kira," L stated in his best detective's monotone. Matsuda whirled around, now looking lost.

"B-But… but Raito would never do that. He has a strong sense of justice. He wants to take Kira down not become him!"

"Actually L's earliest notes on creating a profile of Kira states that through his killing of only criminals, evidence points to Kira _having_ that strong sense of justice, "Mitsu injected quietly. "There are also notes which profile Raito upon meeting him and the two match up almost perfectly and honestly, I've lived with geniuses and I can tell you that they are either insane or quirky, never in between." She was clearly thinking of B's liking of opening people up almost surgically while they were still alive, or Mello's chocolate eating habit or Matt's constant gaming. Even his own quirks of sitting oddly when concentrating hard on a case and chewing his thumbnail were not exactly considered 'normal'. He supposed that out of all of them, Mitsu was the one closest to socially acceptable. Matsuda looked like someone had slapped him round the face, hard.

"I-I need to think," he said, rising from his chair. "I'll be back soon. Oh, and, err, Yagami-san will be here tomorrow." At least they were varying as to who would come on each night, although L truly wanted to be left alone for a night or two and it wouldn't reflect badly on them if they did so, especially if they wanted to appear- at least to outsiders- less suspicious. He nodded towards Matsuda as the young man hurriedly man his farewells and left, looking decidedly shell-shocked, as if trying to process what he had been told. After a moment of silence Mitsu spoke.

"I think you broke him."

"I know," L sighed, staring at the spot that Matsuda had just vacated. "But somebody had to break it to him." He paused, just long enough to collect his thoughts. "So, you've read my notes. What can you tell me about the case?" Mitsu shook her head.

"No, I'm not saying anything. I'll bring them to you tomorrow instead." He sighed but conceded to that. There would be too much to talk about and, besides, he had far too much time to kill. Might as well catch up with himself while he was stuck here.

* * *

 **So, L's back and so is Matsuda! I always wondered what L might think of the nature of Light's killings, especially since when you think 'serial killer' you don't think mostly clean, natural deaths. I imagine many of the type that L deals with would involve blood and lots of it. I will be playing around with this idea a lot in this story because I always thought that Light's plan was slightly... naive in thinking that everything can be compartmentalised into 'good' or 'bad' categories.**

 **So did you like the beginning with the introduction of B? He'll keep popping up from time to time, don't worry- and he will eventually be in this story. Please leave a review of what you thought this week while we try and fix the internet on this end :)**


	5. V: Plots and Schemes

**Wow, guys... this week was just cold. I mean, no reviews is one thing but NOTHING? That was... well, I thought that I would wait a day in the vain hope that something might happen. I know I went away for the week but I didn't realise that everyone else did...**

 **Anyway, the show must go on as they say, so I brought you a new chapter anyway, if a day late. Hopefully, you might like this chapter more than the last, and I would like to know what the issue with the last chapter was (really not even one favourite/follow...?) our of curiosity's sake. Was it because it was a non-event or did I not portray B the way you wanted to? Or is everyone put off by the OC? I would really like to know to rectify the problem if there was some major faux pas that cannot be forgiven so I can rectify it for you if you want. Thanks.**

 **So, here's the next chapter, that is a little more than a non-event, since something more than taking happens in it.**

* * *

Raito had been getting more and more uneasy during the three weeks since his father had seemed to turn it around. Instead of being distant with his family and disappearing when they least expected it, now he seemed to be acting the perfect NPA Chief detective, always arriving on time and spending more time with the family than in the past nine months since the Kira case began. But he was still distant towards himself- only speaking to him when Raito asked a question and spending more time than usual with Matsuda, who Raito was certain was going out of his way to avoid him for some reason.

It had started about three weeks ago. Matsuda had left work early, citing some meeting with a girl (Raito hadn't been paying attention since it hardly mattered to him what Matsuda did) only to return the next day looking as if he hadn't slept for more than an hour or two. Aizawa had slipped a few jokes but Matsuda strangely hadn't paid much attention, instead fiddling with his stationary enough to annoy Raito into snapping that if he wasn't going to do _anything_ he might as well go home and catch up on his sleep. Matsuda had jumped out of his skin and began a more Matsuda-like litany of apologies before getting on with his work. He returned the next day rested and much more like normal but he too was avoiding Raito as much as possible, and while Raito personally thought that the less intrusions he had from the man the better, it was definitely odd- especially when he couldn't think as to where this new attitude had come from.

And Raito hated not knowing things.

"Ryuk," he said one night as he watched the NPA members leave, the new cameras set up and attached so as to pick up sound now, "would you be willing to do me a favour?" The Shinigami looked up from the bowl of apples he was currently devouring to watch the NPA members leave as well.

"And what would that be?" he asked. Raito had been watching his father and Matsuda who were right on the edge of the cameras, conversing too quietly for the cameras to pick up ( _and since when had the pair gotten so good at covering their tracks? They were supposed to be loyal!_ ). Raito was too busy being annoyed that he didn't realise that Ryuk had been waiting for this very request for the past couple of weeks and had been surprised at how slow the teen had been on picking up on the pair.

"I need you to follow Matsuda. Find out what he's been doing these last few weeks," he said. Ryuk cackled. He had gotten bored only two days after the _wonderful_ meeting that the pair had had and so had followed Matsuda to the hospital and witnessed the conversation in which the man had been slapped in the face with reality. He was enjoying the confusion already that the reappearance of this character had, but he was more interested in how he had managed to survive as to what he might get up to.

"There's no need for that. I know exactly where he and your father have been heading," he rasped, eyeing the last apple, trying to decide whether Raito would let him eat it before asking his next question.

"And you didn't think to tell me?" Ryuk found the angry tone in the human's voice funny- he still seemed to think that he could control him like he could the soft-hearted Rem. Unfortunately Ryuk had no such attachments to the teen as she had had to the silly Misa girl and would gladly write Raito's name in his notebook the moment this all got too boring. He had considered the possibility a few weeks ago to see the fallout of the disappearance of Kira but then decided that since Kira was practically gone for now, with only a few killings a week, there wouldn't be much change.

"You didn't ask." Raito gritted his teeth against the Shinigami's careless attitude, knowing that Ryuk played by his own rules and was almost as hard to pin down as L, except in a different way. He would gladly sit back and allow Raito to do what he wanted so long as he didn't ask for any favours from him. He had had a feeling that he had been walking on thin ice with the Shinigami's entertainment levels, and while this new twist was annoying, at least it would give him more time to persuade the Shinigami to spare his life.

"Well, I'm asking now. Where have they been going?" he snapped. Ryuk cackled again, that awful grin of his stretched so far across his face Raito wondered how it hadn't fallen in half.

"Tokyo Grand Hospital, room 102 on the third floor. You want any more information, you'll have to go there yourself." With that he swallowed the last apple in such a careless manner that Raito knew he wouldn't give up any more answers no matter how much he interrogated him. Raito wondered what on earth the pair had been doing at a hospital _and_ visiting the same person. It seemed unlikely even in his own head.

 _What are they doing? It's not like them to decide to move against me unless there's someone that their meeting. A hospital is a good cover if they're pretending to be visiting a sick relative_ he mused. It was almost a scheme worthy of himself, not that he would expect anything less from his own father, but why he had chosen _that_ hospital Raito couldn't figure out. _Wasn't that where L's body was taken…?_

And there it was again, that curl of feelings at the back of his mind that he pushed away every time they arose. L was dead and there was no bringing him back, no matter what he did. He had been an adversary and it was imperative that he be removed at the soonest possible moment and he was grateful to Rem for not only killing L, but Watari as well. The old man he didn't have any qualms about but L… there was something he didn't particularly want to analyse there for some reason, something that he just couldn't get out of his head that had almost overtaken him when L had died. At first he couldn't believe that this man, the most successful detective of all time, had been defeated before that ball of guilt and agony had ripped a scream from his lips before he knew it. He had gained enough control to turn it to his advantage as a reaction of fear inspired by the Shinigami, but he couldn't admit that it had initially been involuntary. Even his own father looked a little shocked at his reaction. _But why? It was clear we were only tolerating each other…_

 _Tolerating?_ Spat the resentful little voice at the back of his head. _It was more than that._ Raito scowled and shoved the little voice back into the cage that he usually imprisoned it, but it was as slippery as the Kira persona. Eventually he was going to have to get used to it but for now he resorted to the usual suppressing it. He had more important things to worry about.

* * *

Mitsu was tired of reading through all her brother's notes but there wasn't much she could do. Personally, she thought that he was pretty sick of reading through his own notes, but at least they were detailed. Any jury that had read this would probably come to the same conclusion that they had but they had no c _oncrete_ evidence that it had been Raito. Most of it was circumstantial, and the points that he had acted suspiciously, there was no view of the notebook that they were apparently trying to find to show that he _had_ killed all those criminals. Honestly how he hadn't been caught, Mitsu wasn't entirely sure- she was certain that absolutely _no-one_ with the IQ and work ethic Raito apparently had would spend fifteen minutes on a single question, nor stretch and announce it so obviously. He would have done better merely continuing with his work in her opinion, but bless him he was new to the rules of espionage (it didn't help that she had been taught a few tricks by Weddy, poor woman).

Lael was recovering well and Doctor Yamada had stated that he was free to leave the hospital today as soon as he had passed the daily check-ups. She could have told him that her brother wouldn't give up on getting better if it meant leaving earlier. He liked his privacy and, while Mr Yagami had been as generous as one could be and she fully planned on paying him back in full, the room was still small and generally public. Taking the notes to him had been difficult as she couldn't leave them there, but she _had_ been able to take a few keepsakes from their personal box.

Mitsu had come up with the idea when Lael was given his first case outside of the country. In order to have full access to the case, Mr Wammy had to take him out of the country, the first time that the pair had been separated for an extended period of time since nearly accidently leaving her to die in the snowstorm four years earlier. The pair had been distraught and it was hard to watch him go, but B had reassured him, as always, that he would take good care of his sister and they had taken the picture that very day, huddled together as Mr Wammy grinned at them over the camera. Lael took that picture with him everywhere, and clearly had been forced to put it away to avoid awkward questions during the Kira case. There were other keepsakes in the box too, ones which they had each collected over the years and swapped. She had her own little collection of things in her own box that was tucked into her suitcase but she wasn't about to let that slip to Mr Yagami and he was polite enough to have not asked, nor looked through the original box.

In all honesty, she had to admit that she actually liked the man. How he had managed to have such an abysmal son, she would never know, since he seemed to take the law very seriously and was ashamed when Lael had first accused Raito of being Kira. She wondered whether he was really taken in by his son's act or if he was trying to cover up his suspicions through his paternal feelings for his son- something that Mitsu could understand but never truly understand. Her memories of her own father were rather vague but she was certain that, like any father, he would have done anything for them. She was certain that they had loved their children equally and with all their hearts. Her only clear memory of them was sitting one day when they were about four and their teacher had been trying to insist on moving Lael up the school but her mother had protested, backed up by their father. She had been a strong believer on keeping them together no matter what- they had come into this world together and she insisted that they would not leave each other without the other.

Matsuda was an interesting addition and, once he had spent the next day or so mulling over what they had said, had come back to offer his services. Unlike Mr Yagami, he no longer offered any opinions towards whether he liked Raito or not, just simply helped them look through the mountains of notes ( _why_ Lael felt the need to make such detailed notes she would never understand- perhaps for the simpletons that judges often were when judging a high profile killer like Kira). He was interesting in that he was enthusiastic to help, even going so far as to help wade through the previous case notes and pin them up as cross-references, despite the fact that many were pretty gruesome (she had spotted Mr Yagami turn green and leave the room pretty quickly once or twice), but when he took the time to think before opening his mouth, she could see why Lael had valued him so much. Of course, _thinking_ had to be involved at times.

He also got on well with both Matt and Mello, both of whom had decided that they couldn't take another day at the Wammy's House and had been looking into joining the LA mafia to pass the time when she found them. They had answered quickly enough- she didn't ask where they got the money from to pay for the flights- and Matt had even offered for the young detective to join in a co-op game with him and Mello. The two boys had grown considerably since the last time she had seen them, but they were still the same two rascals they had always been, just now playing with actual guns rather than fake ones (that they had been the ones to teach them was irrelevant).

"I'm off," she announced. Matt was sitting in a tumble of wires, still working on recovering the files that Wammy had deleted, with a game console in one hand, a cigarette sticking out of his mouth and a laptop set up in front of him. Mello was sprawled next to him, offering the odd piece of advice, munching on _yet another_ bar of chocolate and scanning through more of Lael's notes. She made a mental note to buy some more chocolate for him while she was out. They at least took the time to acknowledge her leaving.

"Tell L to abbreviate his notes next time!" Mello shouted after her and she laughed, knowing he was bored by the inaction.

"It won't happen!" she called back as she got into the lift.

It was a short and familiar walk to the hospital but, knowing that Lael was still weak from being in a coma, she had ordered a taxi. He had been getting stronger these past three weeks, and was at least able to wander through the hospital further than the bathroom, but he was forced to sit and rest often. She knew it frustrated him, especially considering how well he had been at forcing his body to the limits during investigations, but the best thing for him right now was to take it easy- at least physically. He was still trying to find the memories that had disappeared on him and she knew he couldn't stand the empty void that his mind had seemingly become. He could still remember everything from before the Kira case perfectly, but anything after was just one blank mess.

Lael was waiting for her, already dressed to leave, in his room. Doctor Yamada went through the same spiel she was certain he gave practically every day since announcing that her brother was ready to leave which was annoying, but at least he was thorough. Mr Yagami had declined coming, stating that it would be suspicious if he or Matsuda were there and so she signed him out herself, thanking the doctor for all his help, already planning the best way to remove all trace of 'Ryuzaki Yagami' from their records. The walk from the room to the front doors was long with the number of times that they had to stop, but she could tell that it wasn't near often enough. Doctor Yamada had offered them a wheelchair but her brother had refused point blank. He had enough to deal with- he just wanted to be able to walk on his own two feet.

The taxi was waiting for them, right on time. Luckily, there wasn't as much traffic on the roads as had been the night she arrived and her brother practically collapsed into the back, too exhausted to care what the driver might think. She was about to get in herself when another car drew up behind the taxi and a boy with auburn hair and eyes climbed out of the back. Mitsu froze, wondering why he was here. There was no reason for him to come to the hospital, none of his family were sick and there were certainly no members of the Task Force waiting inside. There had been no new Kira victims either, no heart attack victims that she had seen recently in there. There was no point for _him_ to be there unless…

She climbed into the back and ordered, "Take us home. Now." Lael blinked woozily at her, catching the tone of voice despite clearly being rather out of it.

"Is everything alright Mitsu?" She paused, wondering if she should tell him what she had found in the box before deciding against it. It would break her brother's heart and he didn't need any more pain at the moment.

"No, everything's fine. I just want to leave right now." He smiled at her, eyes slipping closed.

* * *

Raito stalked into the hospital, not caring about the odd looks he was getting. He needed to know what his father had been getting up to, because it was obvious now that he thought about it that something was going on. If he was to salvage this situation, he was going to have to move fast and the first thing he needed to know was who he had been visiting. Ryuk had kindly given him the location and even room number, so in theory they would still be here. He noticed vaguely, out of the corner of his eye, a girl about to get into the taxi in front of his car. She had been staring at him but he dismissed it as another admirer. She was unimportant at the moment.

He strode up to the front desk and looked over at the receptionist. She was young and looked bored but perked up at the sight of Raito.

"Hello, how may I help you?" she asked politely.

"I was wondering if you could tell me who was staying in room 102 please?" he asked, giving her a winning smile. She blushed but oddly didn't give him the answer he expected.

"Could I take your name please? You see, I'm only supposed to inform family," she explained, hands spread almost in embarrassment at not being able to explain the situation. Raito was annoyed, but knew that it would be necessary. There would be no point giving his alias though- he had stayed here once as a child to have his tonsils removed, meaning his name would be on record.

"It's Raito Yagami," he said. A part of him knew that he could technically pull out his NPA badge and claim it was important for a police case, but the less people who knew about his trip here, the better. Also, he had left it, stupidly, back at the apartment in his haste to get here. Next time, he would think before he panicked but it wasn't everyday Ryuk decided to withhold _important_ information and he was already plotting on how to get the Shinigami back. Namely, refusing to buy apples for the next week so he would get the message to never do that again.

"Oh, that's fine!" the receptionist said brightly, typing away into the computer. After a few moments she smiled up at him, delighted. "Your cousin, Ryuzaki Yagami was in room 102, but he was discharged about five minutes ago. You must have just missed him!" Raito's brain reached a screeching halt. Everything seemed to stop the moment the word 'Ryuzaki' left her mouth. It had to be a coincidence… there was _no way_ Rem had managed to outfox him on something. It would have meant Misa's life if L had lived! Thankfully, a small portion of his brain remained in gear to thank the girl and walk away. No point in staying in the hospital if he was no longer there.

 _L is still alive perhaps…_ For some reason his mind took him back to the glance of the girl getting into the taxi. Five minutes before… whoever was posing as his cousin must have left in that taxi! He needed to find out where it had dropped them off and fast. He needed to curb the damage as soon as possible, needed to either kill L or convince him that he was innocent of being Kira. _You wouldn't kill him twice_ whispered that poisonous part of his brain that he refused to acknowledge and he _almost_ growled in frustration. _I would kill L again if it comes to that… no need to waste such a brilliant brain such as his…_

 _His brain isn't the only thing you're attracted to,_ it whispered back, sniggering quietly at the faint flush it brought to his cheeks. It was true that _perhaps_ some part of him had _maybe_ admired L for more than his brains… _Damnit, just because you've seen him naked does not mean that you're attracted to the man!_ That really _did_ make him blush, remembering all the awkward (for him anyway- L didn't seem to have any shame) time being handcuffed to the man, especially when it came to taking showers. L had only removed the handcuff on his end and only once they had both removed their shirts, or were about to put them on. He also had no qualms about undressing for a shower in Raito's presence, the first few times Raito had quickly turned to the wall in order to avoid seeing anything but once or twice his mind had been curious… just enough to take the odd sneaky peek, then ones that lasted longer, eventually until he didn't mind L's abject shamelessness…

 _I AM NOT IN LOVE WITH L_ he screamed in his head as that poisonous part of his brain giggled quietly in the corner, much like Misa when she found something funny. He violently shoved that part of his mind back into the cage it belonged, willing to settle once and for all with it that he _would_ kill L and _nothing_ would hold him back from becoming the God of the new world that he was striving to create. And if a part of him disagreed with that, it wasn't important.

* * *

 **Oh, Raito, you're so fun to write in denial... Hopefully he's fun to read that way as well. Did you like the Matt/Mello cameos (unfortunately they don't stay in long for now, so that's all I can really call them)? Or what about Ryuk's nefarious cause? I always wondered why he stuck around when he got bored so easily- I can't imagine him being entertained by Light essentially pulling the strings and not doing anything, leaving it all to Misa or Takada or Mikami. Also, I thought that Light was getting too comfortable in thinking that Ryuk didn't have some other ulterior motive other than being bored- the guy dropped a Death Note just to see the carnage it would cause.**

 **Hopefully, there is nothing offensive or horrific in this chapter that will leave the deafening silence of the past week and leave a review, if only to tell me how awful a person I am for giving such a rubbish fic.**


	6. VI: Discovery and Escape

**First of all, thank you for all the lovely reviews last week! I do understand about 'quiet' periods, it was just the fact that there was physically nothing that occurred last week that made me wonder. Anyway thank you to High on the Rainbow, MasqueradingChaos, Izumikii and bookgirl98 for reviewing.**

 **In answer to bookgirl98's question, Near may or may not cameo in this later, but he is not really a mojor part of this story and since this is only three months after the 'death' of L and Near only made himself known six years after L's death, I'm taking liberty to say that the SPK has not been set up yet as it is not clear whether L is dead or not. I know Mello ran away after the news of L's death, but I did say that I was tweaking some things a bit and that is one of them. Hopefully, that is helpful for you and anyone else wondering the same things.**

 **Anyway, moving on to this chapter, I will have to say bear with the beginning a little bit. It has a lot to do with the plot, even if it seems like a completely different story, but it is essential to setting up something later ;) Otherwise, I hope that you guys will enjoy this chaper, and please let me know what you think!**

* * *

Doctor Collins was fairly sure that this was a bad idea. It had been three weeks since the request had been put to her and, even now, she was struggling with the implications that this might bring. It was true that the patient in question had been doing much better of late, but she didn't think he was ready to leave quiet yet. However, the request wasn't for him to leave treatment completely- merely, to pay her double to come with him across continents. Why they had to move, she was not privy to, and considering her patient's rather… _unusual_ behaviour, she was certain that she didn't want to know either.

She took in a deep breath as she flicked through the file once more. It was filled with the details of those first few days in which he had resisted help completely. The file reported that he had seen thirteen different psychiatrists before being transferred to the Brooklyn Psychiatric Hospital and put under her care. Apparently she had made an impression by refusing to run screaming out of the room when he threw a complete tantrum at having to talk about how he felt that day. Since then she had been closely analysing his every movement, taking note of each and every one of his eccentricities. Personally, she thought he dealt with life far better when removed from anything that might trigger another psychotic episode- namely amongst great masses of people. He struggled at times with the small number of inmates even here and had long since been transferred to a room of his own.

But this request… she sighed as there was a knock at the door. Exactly at eleven o'clock. Punctual as usual.

"Come in," she called, knowing who was waiting behind the door. As expected Dr Johnson opened the door, glasses pushed as far up his nose as they could possibly go and an irritated expression on his face that only darkened the moment he spotted the file she was reading.

"You can't be seriously thinking about this," he snapped. If he hadn't been the head of the board who ran the hospital, she might have said something about his tone, but held her tongue. It wasn't her problem if her boss had an inferiority complex.

"So long as he is properly looked after, I can't see any huge drawbacks. He would be kept contained and isolated from a huge amount of company under my advice and among old friends. The likelihood of any more _incidents_ is low." She didn't mention the money. It didn't matter anyhow- she wouldn't take the risk if she didn't think he could handle it. She was professional that way. Dr Johnson might not see it that way though.

"You and I both know that he is unstable. This… quietness is just him biding his time until we relax enough for him to strike!" Dr Collins raised an eyebrow.

"I wouldn't think so. He's been rather talkative of late and I don't think it has anything to do with the way we have been treating him," she stated, thinking back a few weeks ago to their rather unorthodox visitor. She always enjoyed Miss Rue's visits- they made for entertainment in the staff room while the others worked themselves into a rage, contemplating her actions of the day. "Besides, he has proved in the past three outings that he is capable of controlling himself at least to the point that he is more likely to do injury to himself than others."

"He is deeply disturbed."

"So are many other of our patients and you allow them to go home of the weekend," she pointed out.

"Yes, but none of them murdered anybody!" DR Johnson snapped. "You should never have agreed to take on his case in the first place!" Dr Collins internally sighed, knowing that it would have come back to this. Every conversation they had about her number one patient always returned to this matter of fact- that she shouldn't have taken on his case. There were plenty of other, older and more experienced psychiatrists out there. Why this one? Personally, she wasn't entirely sure, but having been an orphan herself, she felt that she could at least _partially_ relate to what he might be going through. However, she did not suffer from delusions and photographic memory, a rather dangerous combination.

"We are not discussing why I took him on," she said tiredly, closing the file and pushing it to one side. "In fact, I am sure you came in here for an entirely different reason. Now, what was it? I am rather busy at the moment." Dr Johnson looked miffed at being spoken to in such a way but she refused to bow under his glare. She was used to it by now.

"Well, if you are going through with this, I came to sort out who would take over your other cases while you were away," he stated in a tone of voice that just screamed _you remember them? Your other patients?_

"Katherine and David have agreed to take a share of them while I'm gone, depending on when either of them is free. Same time slot, different person," she replied. She had already told him this, and he had been there when she had made the inquiries into who would take over- although she was certain that the only reason she had had so many volunteers was because she would be taking the most feared patient out of the hospital altogether. Dr Johnson looked as though he were trying to think of another reason why she couldn't go, but they had had this argument enough this week. The tickets were bought, the transport covered, their accommodation sorted. She wouldn't be able to stop it if she tried and she was sure that the whole country wouldn't be sad to see him go either and Dr Johnson couldn't stop their opinions. He sniffed before leaving the room in a huff.

"Well then, I wish you luck with your suicide mission," he snapped as he slammed the door shut.

* * *

It annoyed Raito that it had taken him three days to track down the person claiming to be Ryuzaki Yagami. At first he had been too shocked to do much more than speculate (and bury that annoying little voice) but after that he had set his mind on tracking him down. Unfortunately his only lead was the vague glimpse of a girl getting into a taxi and after some serious debate he had decided that it had to have nothing to do with L if this imposter was even him. L had had very little to do with the opposite sex, barely even mentioned them, and spent as little time as possible in the presence of Misa if he could help it- personally Raito couldn't blame him. Weddy, he seemed to regard in a different light, but what exactly his relationship with her, or Aiber for that matter, was ambiguous at best, but the overwhelming evidence was that the girl had little to do with anything. So he had placed her right back into the 'random fan' category.

The trouble with that was he was now right back to square one. He had a name but no address or face to compare it with. He had hacked into the hospital data records to find that all trace of Ryuzaki Yagami had promptly disappeared, leading him to believe that it had _something_ to do with L (who else would delete their own records at such a speed) but that was it. He had tried to tag along with either Matsuda or his father, but both had politely turned him down. Apparently, Raito's charm had finally failed him since both claimed to either be heading straight home or to meet up with some old friends. His father had once allowed him to come with him, but they had literally gone back home and Raito had been forced to sit through his mother's queries into his relationship with Misa ( _as strong as ever_ ) and Sayu's inquiries about work ( _boring_ ). Eventually, he had resorted to asking Ryuk, who had abjectly refused to help.

"I told you, I'm telling you nothing else," the death god had rasped, although Raito suspected that he had about as much of a clue as to L's whereabouts as Raito did. On the second day he had visited the grave that the Task Force had set up for L. Someone had laid fresh flowers- blood red roses in a glass vase, prompting Raito to hack the security footage of the graveyard, only to find a girl with dark hair and a rather European fashion sense ( _who wore berets?_ ).

Finally he had simply gone to the old headquarters, wondering whether or not it would be a waste of time. After all, L wouldn't go back there unless there was a good reason he thought and there was nothing left of the old system. Watari had deleted everything to the point that not even Raito had been able to salvage more than L's voice alteration system and even that had been a miracle. When those two plotted together, they were thorough, which was more than annoying but also helpful (now all the evidence that pointed towards his being Kira was destroyed irrevocably). Despite the fact that he hadn't been expecting much, he was very much mistaken.

The bus stop was in sight of the building and he was just in time to see a girl- the _same_ girl in fact that he could tell from the security tape- shoving two boys into a car, exasperation written clearly in all her features. He waited at the stop as she got into the car and drove away. For a moment, he watched it pause at the top of the street and he was certain that she had seen him from the rear-view mirror, but the car carried on its journey once the lights changed and disappeared into the flow of traffic. He made a mental note not to be too long- it wouldn't do for her to return while he was snooping around, especially if she was living in the building. Perhaps he was going to have to reconsider the idea of L and girls.

The building was as much the same as he remembered, apart from the fact that it refused him entry. Someone had deleted his details from the system, of that he was certain- he had ensured they were there the moment that he reset the system. Swearing under his breath, he wondered if he could bypass the system when the speaker next to the scanner crackled, as if there was someone on the other end. Raito blinked, staring at it. Having never had to use the call button before, he hadn't considered the option, nor considered that someone might be left in the building to be monitoring the cameras. A distinctly American accent lilted down the line in English.

" _Having trouble there?_ " Raito glared at the speaker, wondering who would dare to address anyone, much less the God of the new world in such a tone.

" _I'm here to enquire after my cousin,_ " he lied, following his leads and only _slightly_ stumbling over the English. Two could play at this game if it even _was_ L on the other end- he knew that L was good at modifying his voice but _this much_? Last time he had considered L's accent, he had settled on slightly British, if only for his mannerisms and copious consumption of tea- that and he was certain only the British had butlers. _"Ryuzaki Yagami?"_ There was a pause.

" _Sorry, man, there's no one of that name here. Maybe the next block?_ " If Raito could see the man he might have smacked him. Instead he took a deep breath and tried again.

" _This is the address I was given. Maybe you're mistaken?"_ he asked in his most innocuous voice. It worked on the Task Force and had even worked on L once or twice (although only on minor infractions which Raito took to mean that the older man just didn't care).

" _Nah, I know everyone in the building. I'm certain that there is no Ryuzaki Yagami here_." Raito resisted grinding his teeth together before deciding that he might as well take the chance. He needed something to go on and even if it was an annoying, ignorant American security guard on the other end, he had nothing to lose by it and everything to gain.

"What about someone of the name L?" he asked, this time in Japanese. There was a long pause as if the other person was thinking hard. Then, surprisingly, the door clicked open. Another voice, this time clearly British echoed down the speaker.

" _Take the elevator to the tenth floor. Third door on the right."_ He heard the line cut off and wondered what on earth had caused this change. Uneasy, he followed the instructions ending up in a sitting room much like the all the others in the building, except it was clearly unused. The sofa was still covered in sheets to protect it from the dust that puffed up under his feet. Coughing lightly, Raito wondered what would happen now when TV flickered on of its own accord. There was no background, not even the blank screen with the gothic letter L, just static. Feeling more uneasy, Raito took a step back, suddenly feeling that this hadn't been a good idea. He got the feeling that the other occupant was having the same thoughts.

"What do you want with L?" Same British accent, except speaking fluent Japanese. He wondered if this person and the security guard were the same person- they had to be considering Raito knew that L didn't hire personal security other than perhaps Watari ( _just what_ had _the old man been to L?_ ).

"He's the head of the Kira investigation," Raito said, thinking quickly, knowing that he wouldn't have much time to convince this person of his intentions. "I thought he would want to be updated on the last three months." More silence.

"Why wait three months?"

"I thought he was dead."

"And if he truly was dead and your lead is nothing more than an imposter?"

"Then I plan to bring the imposter to justice. There can only be one L." Raito was surprised at the conviction in his voice. There was another pause before the person replied, this time in a more subdued voice.

"And what would you do if L didn't want to have any part in the Kira case anymore." That stopped Raito for a moment. L not want to finish a case? It seemed absurd. L chased every lead, no matter how out there or obscure, and had _never once_ given up on _anything_. Even his ( _justified_ ) suspicions of Raito, despite it being an unpopular belief.

"Why would he do that?"

"Perhaps he got too close. Or he suffered personal injury and wanted time to adjust." There was a longer pause and Raito wondered if they were speaking hypothetically or not. This sounded nothing like the L he knew, but then, what did he really _know_ about L? He had a raging sweet tooth, was socially unacceptable and overly intelligent, enough to rival and surpass Raito. Perhaps underneath it all, there had been a person there after all, one who was kept underneath a mask even more watertight than his own. Somehow, Raito couldn't imagine it and yet, a part of him wanted to know more about the eccentric detective.

"Would he consider letting an old friend help him out?" Raito wasn't sure how intentional the pleading note in his voice was- he was certain at least part of it was put on, but not all of it. For once his stupid emotions might actually help him out here. The pause here was even longer.

"Raito Yagami is a leading suspect in the Kira case, with recent events making him as guilty as ever. Why on earth would he let you help?" The sudden venom in the voice was like a slap to the face. But the accent had slipped, only slightly, but enough for Raito to recognise the voice for certain. It _was_ L! The relief that spread through him was almost as alarming as the voice that exploded into sudden squealing happiness- he didn't want to begin to even go near it and for once let it do what it wanted. _He's alive, he's alive, and we're not alone anymore!_

 _We were hardly alone in the first place_ he thought dryly, still too shocked to take in what L might have been saying.

 _We have someone on our level again. Misa and the task force don't count_ the voice snapped back. _And you might get a few extra sneaky peeks…_ Blushing furiously, Raito realised that the TV screen had turned off once more. Any further thoughts (dirty or otherwise) were cut off however when somebody tapped him on the shoulder.

"Is Raito-kun in shock?" The voice was the same, no trace of an accent, American or British and Raito, strangely, was suddenly afraid to turn around. There was no emotion in the words, back to the usual monotone he was used to, but Raito wasn't sure what he wanted when he turned around. Did he want to gloat that he had beaten L at his own game? Did he want to rejoice that the man was alive? Or was he just nervous that this could be another trick, merely someone talented at morphing their voice into L's so expertly that he had been fooled once again? But it would do no good to merely stand there for eternity, fearing that this wasn't L and he truly _was_ alone ( _and that was ridiculous because Gods were the most powerful but loneliest creatures in existence- wasn't the Christian God all alone and happy?_ ).

Slowly, Raito turned, still unsure as to what his actual reaction to L's resurrection was. Trepidation filled the few miniscule seconds that it took to do so, but they seemed to stretch out for aeons, longer than time ought to move. At first, he was nothing more than a speck in his peripheral vision, then a blurry image and finally, Raito had to admit that, if this was an imposter, he was an expert. The same height, complete with stoop that made him slightly shorter than Raito (it was annoying to know that he would be taller than him if the man could be bothered to stand upright), coupled with snow-white skin and pitch black hair. Those same large grey eyes ( _too dark and deep for their own good_ ) were staring at him like they had so many times before and for a moment, Raito felt a thrill of dejavύ.

And then he noticed the differences and they hit him harder than a landslide.

L was not dressed the way he usually was. He still wore a baggy pair of jeans, but gone was the white shirt- instead he was dressed in a black T-shirt sporting some kind of band that Raito had never heard of. He wondered vaguely if L actually liked the band, or had just bought the shirt to fit in with others before discarding the idea. L had no shame ( _repeatedly proven_ ) and had no time for social conventions. His hair was longer too, brushing past his shoulders rather than the tips tickling them, and he was thinner, so much thinner it was frightening. He looked fatigued too, not just in the usual I-haven't-slept-because-I'm-an-insomniac, but _tired_ , as if crushed by the weight of everything. But the worst change, and Raito wasn't sure exactly why it was so awful, was that there was no spark of recognition in those fathomless grey eyes, no hint that L knew who he was past a suspect.

 _What happened?_ He wondered, too confused to speak. It must have showed in his face because L didn't say anything either and they merely stared at each other, one trying to beat down his rampaging feelings, the other trying to work out his own thoughts and feelings about the person in front of him. But Raito had spent years perfecting his mask, and now the pesky emotions he had tried so hard to push away would actually prove useful to him. They would enable him to regain L's trust, to draw him into the spider's web, like a moth to a light, and, when he was too entangled to escape, Raito would strike him down, delivering justice as the God of the new world ought to. Pushing a smile onto his face through the myriad of emotions, knowing it probably looked strained, he attempted to make some kind of conversation.

"Hello L," he said, running his eyes over the older man again. "You've changed."

"That does tend to happen when one spends three months in hospital," L noted dryly. Clearly his wit was still an integral part of him- Raito remembered vastly enjoying the brief flashes of it when chained to the man for all those months so long ago. He allowed an eyebrow to twitch up as that annoying voice ran in panic around his head. _Hospitalised for three months? Who hurt him that badly? They will die at Kira's hand!_ He repressed the surprise at that thought, knowing perfectly well _who_ had put L in the hospital.

"Three months? What happened?" he asked curiously, partly because he wanted to know himself and partly because there was something off about this whole situation. L merely shrugged, the movement so different to what he had seen the man do before, that Raito questioned once more whether this truly was L or whether it was an imposter.

"You tell me," he intoned, so emotionlessly that he might have been commenting on the weather, reassuring Raito that he was not, in fact, looking at an imposter. No one else could replicate that monotone.

"You… don't remember?" Raito queried, suddenly unsure. It seemed unlikely that L, who he was _certain_ had a photographic memory, would not be able to remember exactly what occurred that had placed him in the hospital. The shock was helping to make the question sound genuine, but the surprise was not that he had been hospitalised- more that he was alive at all. _Why is that? How did L survive when all others whose names have been written in the Death Notes die? The rules specifically state that any name written in the Death Note will end in death, especially in the hands of a Shinigami. Rem killed him!_ L was frowning, staring up at him, those eyes hard and so unlike the last time he had seen them. _They were so wide that I could see that they were actually storm-cloud grey and not black…_

"I do not remember anything since June last year," he stated blankly. "I do not remember you." Raito opened his mouth to say something when there was a distant beep, the sound of someone entering the building. L glanced back towards the door, eyebrows furrowed. "That will be Mitsu. You must leave now."

"Wait!" Raito shouted, but L suddenly had a hold of his wrist and was dragging him out of the room just as unceremoniously as he used to drag him around with the handcuffs.

"In thirty seconds Mitsu will be in the elevator and in another minute be on this level and searching for me," L said, sounding strained and slightly breathless. If Raito watched him closely, he was also swaying slightly, as if even the exertion of walking down a corridor was too much. "We do not have time to wait and explain." He was heading not for the elevator but for the back stairs that Raito had never used since it would take far too long. Soon, they were through the doors and heading straight down the stairs, L taking them two at a time. Time suddenly seemed to be going too fast, he hadn't even gotten to know anything about this new development yet!

"But Ryuzaki," he cried as he was dragged down further, much further down he was sure than ten floors. "What about the Kira case?"

"It is out of my hands for now," he said, "I was told that you had taken it over in my name." There was something in his tone of voice, something that was off but Raito couldn't quite pin down what it was. They had reached the bottom of the stairs and for a moment L seemed to stumble, catching himself with one hand on the wall. Raito leant forward to help him and was startled to find that he was shaking. This was nothing like the L he had known. It was like reality had suddenly taken a horrific turn and everything he had known about the man was turned on its head. Far above them he could hear the sound of someone clattering down the stairs, a girl's voice calling down.

"Who is that?" Raito asked, wondering why on earth L had come all this way down here when he was clearly unwell. He was warmer than he remembered the other man to be, and he got the feeling that he was running a fever by now. L shook him off, shaking his head.

"This way," was all he said, dragging Raito off once more, and keeping one hand on the wall to support himself. They turned a few more corners and suddenly he was standing in front of a stairwell, light glinting from above him. "Leave. Now." L's voice was hard, breathless as it was. Raito thought about arguing, but another voice echoed behind him.

"Ryuzaki! I know you're down here! What on earth were you thinking?" L was staring at him, eyes blank and still shaking. Raito wondered how he was still on his feet- he looked as if his legs would give out on him at any moment. He opened his mouth to say something- anything, he wasn't entirely sure what- but L cut him off.

"You must leave now Raito-kun or else you will never be allowed to leave," he stated. The sound of heels clicking on hard floors echoed ahead of the girl, whoever she was. Raito shook his head and bolted up the stairs, for some reason not wanting to meet this stranger who could control even L. What felt like three flights later he was out of the building, locks clicking into place behind him and standing on a different side to the building than he ever had before. Trembling, shaken from the sudden shocks of the past half hour and still entirely unsure of how he was feeling, Raito stumbled to the bus stop, feeling completely unlike himself and as far from being the God of the new world as it was possible for it to be.

* * *

 **Aw Raito, I'm not being all that kind to you and your self denial am I? So one meeting between L and Light, hopefully you enjoyed it even if it was brief. I took liberties from L altering his voice when Matsuda was in trouble during the Yotsuba arc, but I would think that doing impressions is probably something that goes along with Wammy kids training.**

 **Please leave a review and tell me what you enjoyed or what may be wrong in this story. I don't mind constructive criticism either so long as it isn't flames.**


	7. VII: Echoes of the Past

**First of all, I would like to apologise that this update came so late in the day. If you remember from about two chapters ago, my internet is playing up and still is. It's being temperamental and on some days decides not to work. Anyway, other than that, I would also like to thank Cupcake and Fairwaters for reviewing this week. And I don't mind essays in the reviews, it makes life interesting... :)**

 **Just as a warning, updates may be slower than normal from now on. My 'all clear summer' keeps seeming to get busy. One day I'm helping babysit my cousin, then the next I'm seeing a horse etc. etc. and then it's suddenly Saturday again and my laptop has been gathering dust all week. I'm not saying that this means I am abandoning this, I try my hardest not to abandon my stories even if they are not updated in an age, but as a warning, this may happen. I have half of the next chapter written up, technically the second half to this chapter, but once again, my week seems to be filling up, leaving me with little time to write.**

 **Other than that, I hope that you enjoy this chapter and please let me know what you think!**

* * *

 _There was something wrong with B. L had been watching the other boy for most of the week, whenever he could really, and there was most definitely something off about him than usual. He was tense, on edge, snapping at anyone who tried to keep in contact with him, even Mitsu. His sister, who had long since been turfed out of what had once been a shared room, was distraught at this new development and begged every night for him to do something about it. He and B were as close as brothers, if he would talk to anyone other than her, it would be L._

 _Things had changed over the past four years. They had grown, changed with the times, each forging their own paths. B had a knack for biology, specifically human biology and spent long hours in the labs learning about forensics and medicines. It was often said that if he didn't become a doctor he would be a forensic investigator, or perhaps an undertaker although L suspected that that was a boring side challenge to B. Mitsu hadn't really settled onto anything as of yet, working at the local theatre and music groups, concentrating on the arts mostly. The only academic subjects that she had a knack for seemed to be languages, keeping pace with her brother in that respect, although it helped having a brother who was now fluent in ten languages and a friend who was fluent in another three._

 _As for himself, he was already working towards detective work. Already he was helping out on several tough cases although Mr Wammy always presented the tips anonymously to the police worldwide and never stated exactly what the source of those tips and facts were. Personally, L would rather be in the country to work on the different cases in the off chance that he could pick up on a clue that the police may have missed, perhaps taking B and Mitsu with him (out of any of the Wammy's children, Mitsu was the only one currently studying sociology and one of only five studying psychology- why those were unpopular choices he wasn't sure since with the direction they were all pushed in it seemed a bizarre choice). They were sometimes invaluable in pointing out some pieces he may have missed- after all he wasn't an expert in every subject no matter what his tutors may think. What he lacked however, B and Mitsu made up for and as a team unit, they were the perfect trio, a fact that was often commented on._

 _But now B seemed adamant to push all others away. He would have asked A if he knew of anything different, but he, too, was acting strangely. The pair of them were not themselves, B stressed and A depressed. B had noted, only a few days before he too started acting odd that he was certain that A may be self-harming and would benefit seeing a specialist and L had mentioned it to Roger, who had merely stated that he would look into it. The orphanage was rather loose in terms of sorting out things like that and L thought that it was stupid. Anyone could see that the amount of pressure the kids were put under was immense and that they should really keep a counsellor at least on site, but no, they had none and would spend the next few days trying to find a suitable psychiatrist._

 _L glanced over the canteen towards where B was sitting, moodily picking at his own meal. It was a Sunday, and so dinner was a traditional British roast, one of B's favourite meals, but tonight he couldn't seem less interested. Mitsu was sending her own not-so-subtle glances over her shoulder, but she had rehearsals that night for her next show that he had tickets for over the next weekend. Clearly unhappy with the situation, Mitsu picked up her now empty plate and rose from her seat._

" _Talk to him will you?" she asked pleadingly. L nodded, swallowing his own mouthful of food and glancing back over towards B, who seemed to have given up on his meal entirely and had risen to empty off his own plate. L tracked him as he made his way over to the counter, stacking the plate with the other dirty dishes and leaving the canteen altogether._

" _I will," he said, knowing where B was going. In times of trouble the trio would often retreat to 'their spot', namely either the base or branches of the horse chestnut tree at the end of the grounds of the orphanage. In autumn they spent hours picking through the branches or roots, looking for the best conkers to collect up for the other children. Tonight, B had merely settled for the base, facing away from the orphanage and into the trees of the surrounding wood. L took a moment to take this all in before settling down next to him._

" _Hey," he murmured, looking sideways at B. he didn't react, continuing to stare off into the distance._

" _Hey," he muttered back._

" _Mitsu's worried about you." Silence. "B, if there's something bothering you…"_

" _The numbers are going down," B suddenly said. L blinked, wondering what that meant._

" _What?" he asked, taken aback. B frowned, glaring down at the grass beneath their feet._

" _A's numbers, the ones above his head, they keep going down," he stated. It took L a moment to remember what that meant. B had only ever once described his 'quirk', the fact that he could see everyone's names floating above their heads and, underneath that, a string of numbers that kept flickering down._

" _I thought that they were always going down," L said, wondering why this was such an issue. B scowled back at him._

" _No, I mean they're falling quicker than they were. Yesterday there were six numbers, today there were four!" He looked down, troubled. "At dinner there were only three. I just don't know why." He growled and punched the grass, shaking his head. "I wish I knew what they meant!" L shook his head, nonplussed._

" _I'm sorry, I can't help you there," he said quietly. B sighed, raising his head to look up at the stars._

" _I feel so helpless. A won't talk to me about anything, not even about that guy he keeps talking to at the gates," he said, red eyes sorrowful. L frowned, alarm bells ringing in his head. The only people who ever came up to the gates were members of staff, many of which who lived on site, and delivery men bringing supplies to the orphanage. He couldn't imagine A talking to either groups of people and B only stated that there was one of them._

" _What guy at the gates?" he asked sharply. "B you know nobody else is supposed to come on site."_

" _That's the thing, he doesn't. He just waits at the gates for A to come see him then walks away," B said shaking his head. "He's always too far away for me to get a good look at him or his name."_

" _You should tell Roger. If he's been at the gates, they'll have it on the security cameras." B considered that a moment before nodding._

" _Yeah, we should."_

" _B…" L paused as they both stood up, staring uncertainly at his friend. "Why haven't you told anyone this before?" B paused a moment and shook his head._

" _I wanted to talk to A first, but he just kept pushing me away. And when I pushed back at him yesterday, he gave me this." B gestured to a bruise which had formed along one cheekbone, under the eye. L had noticed it earlier, but as they day went on, it had only gotten darker, signalling that it was fresh._

" _He hit you?" B nodded._

" _I was lucky he didn't get my eye but it also helped. His arms are bandaged right up to the elbows and there were spots of blood on them. He's definitely using that razor kit Roger got him for more than shaving," B said quietly, turning away to move back towards the house. L followed him quietly, mulling over this new information. It wasn't like A to strike out at anybody, let alone B who he got on well with. In fact, A was the only other person that didn't treat B like he was diseased in the orphanage, instead helping him to settle in over the years. This was more than just merely the depression getting to him- L had to find out who this stranger was, who knew to stay at a distance and away from the students, but close enough to attract one's attention. A and B's room looked out over the front driveway, the only student room to do so, and so it was obvious that this man wanted to speak either to A or B but what for, he couldn't even begin to guess. And why A might be complying with him…? L shook his head, not wanting to even think about what the pair were up to._

 _It took them a few minutes to reach Roger's office and they were then forced to wait another fifteen minutes for the man to return. They had both temporarily forgotten than he was on duty that night in the canteen and that he was most likely keeping an eye on the younger children, the ones most likely to play with their food than actually eat it. He seemed surprised to find the pair of them waiting outside his office but invited them inside anyway._

" _And what can I do for the pair of you?" he asked over the top of his glasses. Roger wasn't exactly condescending but L was fairly certain that he wasn't particularly comfortable in working with children far more intelligent than he._

" _We wanted to talk about A," L said, not wanting to wait around any further. They didn't know what the numbers that B saw meant but there seemed to be a scary finality to the fact that there were only three numbers left._

" _If this is about the depression, we have already referred him to a therapist," Roger stated. "Is there something else that concerns you?" His tone seemed to suggest that the subject was over but B was having none of it._

" _I've seen him talking to someone outside the gates. They come every night and A is always more depressed after the discussions than before. When I asked him who the man was, he got violent." B was staring at Roger straight in the eye but for the first time Roger sat up straight, eyes serious and tense, sensing just as L had that there was something off about all of this._

" _He's been talking to someone on the perimeter you said?" he asked. B nodded and Roger frowned, picking up one of the notepads off the side of his desk and flipping through it. "The security cameras haven't picked up any strangers from the gates… B where exactly have they been meeting?"_

" _On the side of the wrought iron fence outside our room. You can see them from our bedroom window."_

" _That's the main gate…" Roger murmured, flipping through the book further, then slammed it shut. "There's nothing in here," he muttered in frustration, then turned to them. "You two are to keep an eye on A while I report this to Mr Wammy. Unfortunately he won't be back until late, but until then, he doesn't leave this building without supervision. I will be going out to check on the security cameras, make sure that they haven't been moved." The boys both nodded and left the office. B looked unnerved by the seriousness of Roger's face but L supposed that he was still on edge about the numbers._

" _I'll meet you tomorrow then," B said uncertainly._

" _You don't want any help with A?" L asked in surprise, but B shook his head._

" _I'll be fine," he said, a trademark grin in his face but L could tell, under that, that he was nervous. He quietly promised himself to check up on the pair later that night with Quillish Wammy arrived, already thinking up reasons for his presence. Returning the fake smile he nodded._

" _Alright. I'll see you tomorrow," he said, turning with him to return to their respective rooms. He settled down, on the bed, dragging his laptop towards him, intending to hack into the system. He wasn't the best hacker in the orphanage, detective work was more up his street, but he still had skill enough to get into the system without being detected. Looking through the cameras for the front gate, he noted that nothing especially untoward had happened. The previous three nights worth of recordings showed no stranger like B had stated, but it was the only place that had been specified. A appeared all three nights but no stranger which was odd. If B had noticed him (and there were certainly no blind spots in the gates, he had checked all the angles) then he had to be there, but there was nothing, not even a dog or cat that A was talking to. Something was not right._

 _L wasted an hour looking through the footage. He would have continued on, trying to think of reasons for the holes in B's story, when the screaming began._

* * *

Mitsu was probably the epitome of not happy right now. She had been gone for all of half an hour and in that time her brother had managed to not only greet, meet and help to escape the one person she wanted him as far away as possible from right now, but he had also managed to completely exhaust himself. If it wasn't clear that any form of shouting or threats would sink in, in the half delirious state he had pushed himself into, she would have already given him a piece of her mind. Instead she had merely walked in, taken one look at her brother sitting at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the outside world and shook her head.

"You know, one day this curiosity of yours is going to get you killed," she muttered as she half carried him back to the elevator. Lael let out a breathy laugh, knowing as well as she did that this much exertion so soon after recovering from a coma was not in the greatest interests of his own health. He had been doing so much better lately, taking things slower than normal, eating healthy foods (mainly because she had pointed out that eating crap at the rate he had been before was not only cause enough for a non-Kira-induced heart attack, but it would also slow down his recovery time, sweet tooth or not) and exercising at the rate recommended by Doctor Yamada (whom they would never see again if they could help it). This setback was most certainly _not_ welcome and Raito would not be returning if she could help it.

"Too late," Lael murmured as the elevator arrived and Mitsu would have scowled if it hadn't made her heart hurt just that little but more. It wasn't enough that Kira had practically stolen her brother from her- he had to break him first as well.

"That is just a little too early for a joke, Lael," she stated, not caring that if anyone other than her would bother going back in the video records, they would have L's real name. Besides, Matt had set up the new system to be completely safe and if some upper middle class genius thought he could get back in, he had another think coming. Not even if Soichiro tried to access the system at home would he be able to see anything worthwhile. In fact, Matt had set up a little 'surprise' just in case he did.

"Isn't that slightly inappropriate?" she had asked. Mello had raised an eyebrow.

"Who are you to talk about 'appropriate'?" Matt had just grinned.

"Come on, he'll probably like it anyway. Bet you a tenner that he'll keep it on his laptop in some secret file for those dark lonely nights." A part of her wished that she had taken him up on that bet. It would have been pretty funny but she knew better than to take on bets that would have her lose money. Living on the streets tended to make you tight about stuff like that.

Lael fell asleep the moment she set him down on the sofa but she didn't mind. It would take just that little bit longer for him to recover, not that it truly mattered with all the issues with this case anyway. She sighed and set to tidying away the room, sweeping cake crumbs off of the side, smiling at the thought that he had clearly been sneaking in something sweet while she was out. Some would have thought that it was a game that they played- a childish game where the winner was the one that got their own way- but in all honesty she didn't mind. It meant that he was still her brother, he wasn't some kind of case-solving machine, existing only to solve the world's toughest cases for the world's governments.

There was a quiet beep behind her, warning that either Soichiro or Matsuda had entered the building. Glancing towards the screen monitor, she was surprised to see that it was the pair of them, but then narrowed her eyes, glancing back towards where Lael slept. This would be the perfect opportunity to gather intel on how Raito had found his way into the building other than Lael's curiosity (why her brother had decided that confronting him was a mystery, but she had a pretty good idea as to why). Jumping into the seat beside the sofa, her back to the doors. No need for her to make the effort to welcome them in when they were practically here every day, although she wasn't too sure about their decision to come alone.

"Hello Mitsu," Matsuda greeted the moment they entered, exuberant as always. Mitsu raised an eyebrow, smiled but shushed him, gesturing to where Lael was sleeping on the sofa. "Oh, sorry," he whispered, eyes suddenly sad.

"It's alright," she said. "I'm mad at him not you." Unlike some of the other task force members, Matsuda seemed to have a sixth sense as to the feelings in a room- most of the time he had the sense not to speak out about it, although she was sure his exuberant nature gave it away half of the time. That he was able to gage not only her own emotions, but Lael's as well, was impressive, especially when she was sure that many of the others were oblivious. Raito was tricky to pin down since he seemed in two minds most of the time to the point that she sometimes suspected that he had MPD.

"What happened?" Soichiro Yagami asked quietly, at the proper respectable level for someone sleeping in the room. It annoyed Mitsu at times that he seemed to inadvertently exude the feeling that you were inadequate if you did anything less than proper- it irked her to no end. It seemed to her that the longer she spent in his presence, as genuinely nice as he seemed, the more she could understand how Raito may have gotten the unrealistic view that there were straight black and white lines between good and bad.

"Your son decided to pay a visit." She didn't believe in hanging about on anything this important.

"What? Why was he here?" Matsuda, quietly, exploded. Mitsu might have laughed at his manic whispering if he hadn't voiced exactly what she had been thinking.

"I don't know. All I know is that he arrived the moment that I left with Matt and Mello," she said, noting the strange twitch that Soichiro's face went through, knowing how conflicted he had been about their presence considering their not so subtle criminal movements. "I came back to find my brother smuggling him out of the back entrance."

"We have a back entrance?" Matsuda asked, distracted.

"Matsuda, focus!" Soichiro admonished. "How did he know how to come here?"

"You tell me," she snapped. "He's your son." Matsuda suddenly looked nervous, glancing between her and his boss.

"Raito's been suspicious recently, asking to come with us and trying to follow, but we've been throwing him off," Matsuda said, glancing over to Mr Yagami who nodded.

"I even aborted a visit to go home instead when he insisted on coming. Raito isn't stupid you know," he stated.

"I know that," Mitsu said. "But something happened. He's been onto you ever since I saw him at the hospital."

"Maybe he thought to look here? If he got the name Ryuzaki from the hospital then he would have thought immediately of L and decided to look into whether he was still alive," Matsuda suggested timidly. "I mean, we worked here for months before the incident." She frowned, although she appreciated that he had tried to downplay the fact that she had almost lost her brother that day.

"You do have a point," she conceded, thinking furiously. She wasn't as good as her brother at connecting the dots, she was well aware of that and hence her skills lay elsewhere. Her brother looked at the bigger picture, she looked at things on a smaller scale, taking one person at a time rather than scanning through hundreds. _Why is nothing ever simple anymore?_ She thought, thinking back to the times when it was just them and B, playing out in the back gardens of the orphanage. For a mad moment she wished B was there, until that ground her thoughts to a stop. _Maybe… That could work._ "Maybe this isn't as bad as I thought," she murmured, glancing back towards her brother, thinking back to the box and what she had found there. What she had hidden, even from him.

"What do you mean?" Matsuda asked. "How is this not bad?" She blinked at that, wondering when Matsuda had joined their corner for good. Even Soichiro looked startled at that and Matsuda flushed once more. "I mean, wasn't the whole point of us pretending not to know anything about this to protect L in case Raito _is_ Kira?"

"It was," Mitsu said gently, smiling, "But there's no point in pretending if he already knows we're here. Raito plans quickly, he's almost as good at the big stuff as my brother. He thinks big and knows it. But what happens when you force him to think small? To think about reality properly and not his dream world?"

"I don't understand," Mr Yagami said quietly. She sighed, knowing that this would be hard for Mr Yagami to hear but it had to be said, and repeated for Lael.

"Raito is like L in a lot of ways. He thinks about whole chunks of people- countries, governments, even the whole world- and that usually allows him to move up in the world. The smaller stuff, like homework and school stuff is pathetic compared to that and so he spends as little time as possible living on what I like to call planet Earth, instead living in the high and mighty world of Raito Yagami, extraordinary person, youngest ever member of the NPA and the newest L even without being Kira. If he _is_ Kira, he is also thinking about an unrealistic 'perfect' world in which he is essentially God." She paused a moment to let this sink in, watching Soichiro carefully who seemed to be trying his hardest to keep a straight face, but she could tell that he was insulted for his son. "Don't be upset Mr Yagami, all geniuses know that they're better than the rest of us. However, unlike L, Raito has discarded the one thing he deems both most important to him but also the most in his way." She paused, knowing that this wouldn't be pleasant. "His family." At that, Soichiro's face really did crumple into anger.

"That isn't true! Raito has loved us all, you only have to look at what he's done for Sayu to know that!" he shouted, disregarding the fact that Lael was still asleep. It didn't matter, he had been too exhausted to be woken by it now, but Matsuda looked alarmed and made flapping motions with his arms, as if that would make Mr Yagami quieten. Mitsu personally did nothing. She knew that this was just paternal denial that he wanted to believe only the best of Raito, but she knew too that deep down, he knew that, Kira or not, there was something deeply _wrong_ with Raito, something _missing_ that even her brother had. He just didn't want to admit to it yet.

"And yet at the first possible moment he moved out of your house. He doesn't visit unless he had to or he thinks that he'll get something out of it," she said in return, quiet and level, no nonsense. She had been taught that to get mad back at someone was counterproductive, which she agreed with. Soichiro didn't need anger at this point. He needed someone to give him the facts to mull over, discard and then come to his own conclusions. He had admitted in the past that he couldn't bear to watch his son be locked up and accused, he knew that it would break not only himself but his family if Raito were Kira. She trusted him to know when to pull out- in that, he was sensible enough. "Don't get me wrong, I'm certain he loves you all. His desire to bring criminals to justice, even without being Kira, shows how he wishes to protect you. But he doesn't truly understand his own _feelings_ because they're small and insignificant in a great big world, so he's discarded them and, therefore, you in order to move on and up in the world. Big scale." She paused again, thinking carefully. "If you would like, I could give him a psychological exam, or get a professional to do so if you would prefer?"

"You want to send my son to a shrink?" Soichiro practically snapped, still reeling from her cold lines. She sighed.

"I've told you that there is no such thing as a normal genius. They all have quirks. Where we used to live, kids got sent to a psychiatrist all the time. After A-" She stopped then, suddenly aware that she had wandered off into memory lane and had almost gone back to thinking about that awful day when she had arrived to find her brother holding a shaking and sobbing B, the water in the bath dyed red with blood. Matsuda looked just as shocked as she felt, although Mr Yagami just looked confused.

"Who is A?" he asked. "What on earth has he got to do with my son?"

"Nothing," she said numbly, wondering if this would really work. But he was practically already involved and it might solve some curiosities that had been eating away at them all since then. "It doesn't matter." Silence fell then as she sorted through her own thoughts, shoving A aside. It was traffic but it had been years and there were more important things to think about. She had to keep Lael safe and this gamble might pay off or it might get them all killed. Luckily, Lael was also an all or nothing kind of person and she was thankful of that. "I think it would be better if you left now," she said quietly. "My brother needs his rest." The pair nodded and headed for the door. Matsuda paused though at the exit.

"Mitsu…" he said quietly. She turned and suddenly found herself enveloped in his arms. "Whatever happened to him, I'm sorry," he murmured in her ear and then, giving one last smile, turned and ran off to catch up with Mr Yagami. Surprised and in shock at what had just happened, she could only stand there, wondering why everything in her life was so messed up that the NPA officer had been able to see through the carefully erected walls.

* * *

 **So, as I said before, this is only one half of the original plan for this chapter. I got to this part and went 'oh, wow, this will be a mammoth of a chapter with a never ending conclusion' and would also have come as a late, well later, update so I thought that it would be better to split it into two, maybe even three depending on where the story goes next.**

 **As for Mitsu, as an own character, I like to flesh her out and here was a good chance. Savour it, it may not happen again for a while, but I hope that any good feelings you had brewing about her have not been dampened at all by so much of this being in her viewpoint. Before anything breaks out about how as L's twin she ought to be better at secrets, yes she is, but I also want to show that in some ways she is also more _human_ than L as she is more on our level. But next chapter we are back to L and the ever-present sub-plot of the flashback. Kinda.**

 **And no, I am not intentionally setting up Mitsu/Matsuda although they keep having these little fluffy moments inside and outside of my head in this story.**

 **Please let me know what you think and I shall be back next week with part 2!**


	8. VIII: What if?

**Ok, so I have a confession as to why this was late and not because it wasn't ready. This was late due to the combination of laziness and internet problems. Long story short after spending over an hour yesterday morning trying to make the internet work, it did the exact moment I had to leave and then spent another hour in the evening trying to make it work and by then I just couldn't be bothered to turn on my computer to update. So, um, yeah... it wasn't just my laziness!**

 **In all seriousness though, I am sorry that this is over 24 hours late, although some of the blame does lie with BT. But thank you to Demonishfangirl and Hzzml for favouriting/following and a bug thank you to Fairwaters once again for being the only person to review this week. And yes, I felt bad enough for giving them an awful backstory that I too wanted to hug them and then realised that they were fictional characters that I couldn't do so but I'm glad I'm not the only one who gets too invested in fiction :)**

 **Moving on, I hope that you enjoy this week's chapter and I will hopefully be back on time with another chapter on Sunday as usual, with hopefully better internet connection.**

* * *

Soichiro found himself watching his son for the next couple of days, thinking over everything Mitsu had said. He couldn't deny that Raito wasn't exactly _normal_ but he was as perfect a son as one could want. How could his son, evidence or not, be Kira? He came home every so often to talk with Sachiko, had taken Sayu to school every day for nearly five years and he was doing everything in his power to help the Task Force to _catch_ Kira. So why did something in him agree with Mitsu- that his son had the highest probability of being the original Kira?

He tried to rethink everything that they had found out. L had been about to trial one of the rules in the Death Note, one which may put Raito _back_ under the spotlight as a suspect as well as Misa Amane, but any talk of that test had been dropped ever since Raito had taken over the Task Force. In fact, even he had felt uncomfortable at first, allowing Raito to just take the reins so easily, letting his own son boss him around like it was nothing. But Raito seemed to always be one step ahead of the game, always thinking ahead, of everyone and everything… and that left the possibility of Mitsu's plan to have him brought back to earth seem all the more probable for ousting Kira. It just kept leading him around in circles.

He wasn't sure how he felt about the idea that Raito should see a psychiatrist. On the one hand it would prove that the twins were wrong, that L had been wrong, and that Raito had been innocent all along. On the other, it might prove the exact opposite and the thought of trying to explain to the rest of the Task Force that Raito might be Kira on the professional outside opinion of a top psychiatrist did not seem pleasant. Soichiro wasn't usually one to balk at such things, but in this case he found himself stuck in the middle of something deeply personal and, not for the first time since Raito joined the Task Force, did he wonder if he was fit to be there. After all at every turn he was denying L that his son had any possibility of being Kira, let alone the actual killer. He knew that he had parental bias, but he suddenly wondered by just how much? There was logic behind every one of L's moves, attempts to prove to a jury exactly who Kira was and how he killed. Even when they had the notebook, L hadn't been satisfied. Instead of being afraid of something that was clearly supernatural, that came along with such a strange and terrifying creature, he had been analytical, treating it as any other piece of evidence in a homicide case. How does it kill? How long can it be used for? Are all these rules true or were some put in by Kira in order to preserve his life?

In his head, Soichiro had to admit that he had been avoiding the evidence that pointed towards Raito being Kira. Unlike L, who looked at everything through several different angles under the pressure of several different governments, he had been creating excuses he could see now. Even when it was clear that Raito had done something odd, he had thought that it was just Kira trying to set his son up to take the fall. But now, that only seemed like some kind of outside chance. As Mitsu said, Raito wasn't just thinking about himself and his family, as Soichiro most often was, but instead looking at the whole city, the whole _country_ even, and how to get it out from under Kira's almost dictatorship over who lived and who died.

 _I have to talk to Raito first_ he thought, glancing over towards where his son was sitting, deep in thought. It was only yesterday that he had been at the old headquarters, and yet, Soichiro thought that something had changed about him. He seemed to be even deeper in thought than before and earlier, when Matsuda, in one of his usual exuberant moods, had politely enquired of Raito if he wanted anything from the most recent coffee run, Raito had been so startled that he knocked over the previous coffee cup, spilling now cold coffee everywhere. He had then declined and gone off to find something to clean up the mess, but Soichiro had found himself looking at the dripping liquid wondering what was going through his head. It wasn't like Raito to leave coffee, he loved the stuff too much. So what was going on with him now?

Shaking his head, Soichiro rose and stretched before making his way over towards where Raito was sitting. Today had been a slow day in the grand scheme of things. There were very few cases that the detectives needed to solve and there was nothing new in the realm of Kira, and so most of the Task Force were not here. Aizawa had booked the day off to see his daughter and wife, and Mogi had decided to stay at the NPA station to catch up on work there, along with some of his other work colleagues. Soichiro approved, after all they were not some kind of island from the rest of the world, and had even considered taking Raito home to see Sachiko and Sayu for the express purpose of getting him to stop working. He had been looking tired these last few days and he wondered if it had anything to do with L.

"Raito," he said quietly, attempting not to startle him as before. It didn't work as Raito almost jumped out of his seat. _This is nothing like my son at all_ he thought as he placed a calming hand on his son's shoulder. "I think we need to talk." Raito blinked up at him as if trying to work out what the correct answer to that was. Matsuda had looked up from his laptop, one half of the headphones set just behind his left ear so that he could still hear if anything important happened.

"Of course," Raito said eventually, clearly having decided that this wouldn't be the death of him. He nodded towards Matsuda who merely slipped the headset completely over his ear and then led Raito into the kitchen where there would be no possibility of Matsuda hearing them. Not because he didn't trust the young officer, but because this was family business and as much as Soichiro liked the man, he was not a part of their family.

"What is going on Raito?" he asked, getting straight to the point. Again, Raito paused, as if thinking through his answers.

"It's nothing dad," he said eventually. "I'm just tired, that's all." Soichiro raised an eyebrow at him, wondering when he son had learnt to lie so badly.

"I've seen you _tired_ Raito. This is something else." He laid down the paternal disappointment thick. It wasn't often he had to do so with his son, but this would be one of those moments. He was going to get the truth out of him, whether he liked it or not. Raito looked slightly surprised at having been found out. "Don't start lying to me now."

"Why didn't you tell me about the hospital?" Raito said, seeming to switch tactics. There was an odd note in his voice, one that Soichiro hadn't heard before, and he wasn't sure how to feel about that.

"What about the hospital?" Soichiro asked, trying to see how much his son had truly found out. After all, he knew that L was still alive and that the pair had met, but it might still help to know exactly _how_ Raito had come to that conclusion. Raito raised his own eyebrow.

"Ryuzaki Yagami?" he said, that note now sounding like hurt. "Dad why didn't you tell me that L was still alive? He was my friend!" Soichiro blinked at the amount of emotion in Raito's voice. _Is this why he's been so distracted today?_ He thought. _He's been upset all this time because I didn't tell him about L?_ That made him feel slightly better, but right now he had a rather emotional son to deal with and not quite sure how to move forward with it. Raito had never been one to complain, or even to tell either of his parents about his problems, so Soichiro was a little lost on how to comfort his son, but he supposed that it wasn't all that different to comforting Sayu. So he took in a deep breath and consigned himself to explaining his reasons.

"Raito…" He paused, wondering how he could explain this completely. "When I took L to the hospital three months ago, they weren't sure whether they could resuscitate him or not. None of Kira's victims had been able to and Watari was pronounced dead here. But L… L they were able to get breathing once more but they couldn't get him to wake. He was in a coma, almost brain-dead." He stopped then, thinking back to that day waiting outside the OR, wondering whether the man to come out would be breathing or not. When they had finally brought him out, he was already attached to several machines, face as pale as ever and eyes closed.

"We were able to bring him round, but he won't wake. He was without oxygen for nearly ten minutes after cardiac arrest, it's a miracle that he is even alive right now. If his brain activity gets any lower however, I'm afraid he will be surgically brain-dead and there will be nothing we can do for him," Doctor Yamada had said. It was the first of many conversations in the past three months and it was never easy to watch anyone waste away in front of your eyes.

Right now, Raito was watching him with wide eyes, almost startled at the detail in which his father was going into, but Soichiro felt that he had a right to know. _Small things, one person at a time, he needs to understand this_ he thought. _It might do wonders for him_.

"It was three months of waiting and praying that he would live. There were times when the doctors were telling me that I should simply pull the plug that he would be happier if I simply let him go but I couldn't." He paused thinking about all those three months, every up and down. The man had fought to stay alive, he just knew it. Who else would survive after having stopped breathing for so long? He supposed that the paramedics had managed to get him breathing and heart working once more, but he had been rushed inside as it didn't work for long. After a while he had researched how long a person was supposed to have survived after cardiac arrest and discovered that actually, the man was most likely to have some kind of after effects even if he did come round. _Three to five minutes… it should have been impossible after three to five minutes…_ "I couldn't tell you about him when it might turn out that he would die in the end." Raito looked taken aback by that, as if it hadn't occurred to him that the reason he wasn't told was to merely spare his feelings. Of course that hadn't been the _only_ reason, but Raito didn't need to know that.

"I… I'm sorry dad," Raito murmured, his head dipping, hair hiding his face. There was a moment's silence between them that seemed to spread out for eternity.

"I saw him yesterday," Raito said abruptly. "He didn't remember me." Soichiro sighed, knowing that this would have come up, as surprised as they had all been that Ryuzaki had allowed his son up in the first place.

"I know. He doesn't remember any of us," Soichiro said gently. "He was in a coma for three months son… a coma that he shouldn't have woken up from in the first place. As shocking as it may be, imagine what it must be like for him." He supposed that Raito might be able to sympathise better with L than he ever could. The pair were close enough in intelligence that Raito would know better what it was like for the other boy, especially since he himself had holes in his own memory. _Or so he says_ said that little voice that kept bothering him in the back of his head. _He's been acting differently since we caught Higuchi._

"How much does he remember?" Raito asked softly.

"Nothing," Soichiro said. "Nothing about the Kira case, hence why he knows none of us."

"Oh." It was such an odd sound to come from Raito that Soichiro found himself taken aback. Raito was rarely surprised, and even if he was, he never showed it. Whatever had happened between the pair, it had cut deeper than anything that Soichiro had witnessed before. It was strange to see so much of him at once for Soichiro- his son was a private young man who rarely showed what he was truly feeling towards his own family.

The silence stretched between them once again and Soichiro felt strangely awkward, not knowing how to deal with Raito in this strange mood. He had always been so self-reliant, never asking his parents for anything. In fact, Soichiro could probably count the number of times he had had to console his son on only one hand- even as a child Raito preferred to fight his own battles. He had never been bullied, never been depressed, never truly been in trouble either at school or at home. When he was small, he had always been a quiet child, reserved and usually peerless, although never picked on. Sachiko had referred to him as a wallflower and that he would grow into himself, which he inevitably did. The silence was ended when Raito stood up from his chair, face still hidden, to walk out of the room.

"Thank you dad," he said formally. "It helped." When he raised his head there was the barest trace of a smile, but otherwise there was nothing different to the usual mask he wore.

* * *

L woke slowly from the sleep, confused. He was certain that he had passed out downstairs where he had let Raito go for some unfathomable reason but this was not the underground garage. This was the control room, where the many computer screens were blinking back at him and a cushion was dented below him from where he had fallen asleep. He was certain that Mitsu was most likely pissed at him for letting Raito in in the first place, but he vaguely remembered something about a bad joke and the elevator… _She must have brought me up here to rest before ripping me to pieces_ he thought, glancing over at the monitors, showing that Mitsu was currently in the shower. That one he shut off.

The control room was most definitely _different_ to how Soichiro Yagami had described it before. Mitsu had made Matt and Mello clear away all the wires and miscellaneous computer parts, but many of his notes were hung up on movable boards or laid out in a certain order on desks. There had been nearly twenty boxes of notes, some old cases that were burnt into his brain, but most from the one case that he didn't remember, his early notes on various suspects before narrowing down on Raito. Towards the end he wondered if he had had some kind of mental breakdown with the mentioning of Death Gods and Death Notes and notebooks that could kill so long as you had a name and face… _but then again, once you thought that the ability to tell someone's name and lifespan was no more than a 'quirk'_ he thought, continuing his scrutiny of the room.

The chairs and sofas were the original ones, not long used or even well used by the officers. He supposed that they were often too busy to sit down and chat through breaks, or were too intimidated by him to take any. The coffee table was now cluttered with various bits of paper, most doodled on by Mitsu in her boredom, books- mostly various volumes of George R R Martin's series _A Song of Ice and Fire_ \- and empty mugs. Quillish Wammy would usually clear them away as he chased after L mentally, but with the old man dead, they were merely left and cleared away when either he or Mitsu realised that there were no more mugs left over to make a cup of tea. Same with food or milk or the sugar cubes really. The space by the computers was similarly cluttered and in one corner Mitsu had set up her easel and a sketchpad to keep an eye on him when he was actually working, which hadn't been a lot lately. The only thing missing from the moment before he had left to confront Raito Yagami was the plate that he had used to eat a slice of cake from. _Mitsu must have cleared it away_ he thought fondly, just as Mitsu walked in, clearly having finished with her shower.

" _Risen from the land of the dead?"_ she asked, one eyebrow raised. Her eyes were chips of flint in her face, but she was disguising the annoyance behind a joke, almost testing him.

" _I know you're mad at me,"_ he deadpanned and then paused before continuing. " _I'm sorry. I don't know what got into me._ "

" _Neither does anyone else,_ " she said dryly. " _But if the plan was to see if he would try to kill you twice, I could have told you that the answer was yes._ " He winced at that, knowing it was true. In all honesty, he _really_ didn't know why he had let Raito Yagami in, or even why he had started talking. Raito would have known that someone was in since he had entered too soon after Mitsu and the others had left to not have noticed the car leaving, but he didn't have to answer the call button if Raito had gotten round to pushing it. He could have feigned innocence or pretended that no one was in. They were trying to stay _out_ of his radar, not stick themselves right into it. But something had made him want to play around with the boy, this person who had screwed around in his head and made it so that he had a rather large hole in his otherwise perfect memory. But then he had been caught by something, some motion he had made, a slight catch in his voice that hinted towards a desperation that L was sure even _Raito_ didn't realise was there. And that was it. He had let him up, let him in and now they couldn't go back.

" _I know it was stupid and illogical,_ " he started and Mitsu frowned.

" _You're damn right it was stupid and illogical! I nearly lost you once Lael, do you want to me do so again? Does this case mean so much to you that you'll throw everything away for Raito Yagami?"_ There was no catch in her voice where a normal person might have been crying by now. Nothing but anger, annoyance that he had messed up where usually it was the other way around. It wasn't the norm for Mitsu to berate him but he was certain that she had a sharper tongue than even him.

" _I just wanted to fix this hole where my memory ought to be!_ " he shouted back at her, annoyed now himself. She didn't know how this felt, to find everything and everyone a stranger.

" _That's what Soichiro Yagami and Matsuda are for! That's what all these bloody notes are for!_ " she shouted back. " _Why risk your life with someone who we know wants you dead?_ "

" _I don't know!_ "

" _Then what the fuck were you doing?_ " He couldn't answer that. Mitsu was looking tempted into throwing something at his head, perhaps one of the books which was usually a favourite when they were arguing, but as the silence stretched on she just looked exasperated. Contrary to most people's beliefs, when he and Mitsu fought- which was just as often as any set of siblings- it was not usually intellectual or to do with debates. When they were younger it was over who got the top bunk on the bunk bed, as they grew older, how often he was away, which only increased as he grew in infamy, sparking many such arguments as this. Mr Wammy had once voiced that they must have blown their parents ears out with the volume that they could get to. This one seemed to be incredibly short compared many of their previous arguments.

"So," she said eventually, switching flawlessly to Japanese. "What now?" He sighed and dropped back onto the sofa. Despite having rested for most of the day, L could still feel the ever-present tiredness of the coma most likely having been brought on by wearing himself out like that. _I should have taken the elevator_ he thought wearily. _There are two of them after all_. Apparently, his mind was not set on logic in the past few hours.

"Find a way to fix this," he replied, still tired. "There's a two percent chance that Raito might not be Kira and that he's being set up but his actions speak against that." Sometimes, L just needed to run through the old evidence to find something new. Not always, but at times like these it helped from going _too_ far back in his mind. "However, I think that Raito did not expect to find me alive so there is a fifty percent chance that he may be in shock right now."

"Only fifty?" Mitsu asked sceptically. "He practically stumbled his way to the bus stop." L cocked his head to one side, considering that and then recalculated.

"Seventy five percent chance then. We have to leave room for an act." She nodded before he carried on. "As a serial killer, Raito is most likely figuring out a new way, once past his shock, to try for my life again, most likely involving the notebook and some way of gaining my real name if he doesn't already have it." He paused, frustrated. "But I don't know how to prevent him from getting it if he doesn't, especially if this Kira two is involved who only needs a face!"

"One of your notes mentioned that there was some kind of deal that the owner of a notebook can make a deal to be able to see a person's name and lifespan," Mitsu said off-handedly.

"For half of their remaining lifespan," L said, half wondering where she was going with this, although the other half had guessed and rebelled against the thought. _I promised to leave him alone_.

"Well, why not ask someone who was born with a gift like that?" she continued innocently, like he hadn't already spotted the route she might have taken with that comment.

"No."

"Why not?" she asked. "To catch a killer, why not ask a killer? And if not, he can at least be able to tell who any imposters are."

"I promised that I wouldn't get him involved." L was adamant. It had passed through his mind a couple of times as well, but he had left his friend behind to heal and the reports were that he was steadily improving. He would never be the same, but at least he wasn't morbidly trying to carve people up anymore out of curiosity to see how far one could live and recover through the ticking numbers above your head.

"To him or yourself?" Mitsu wasn't impressed. "He's technically involved whether you like it or not. Besides, I was thinking."

"Dangerous," he jibed. "About what?" he asked after she shot him a look, one hand inching towards the closest book.

"Shinigami… they can't be seen by anyone who doesn't own a notebook and he kept seeing A talk to a person we never saw in the recordings…" _That_ woke him up slightly. _Surely not… He's never been anywhere near a notebook like the one described in my notes but the eyes and the evidence… How didn't I see it? Is it possible?_ It seemed inconceivable but if it was true, Mitsu would be right. He _was_ involved.

"Fine," he sighed. "Call Dr Collins."

"Done it already," she said airily, rising from the back of the sofa where she had been sitting. "I wanted to know if she could give our favourite moon a session." He blinked at that, nonplussed.

"And Yagami-san agreed to that?"

"With difficulty, but yes." She paused at his disbelieving glare. "Eventually. I had to drill it into his thick skull."

"Well, since you are clearly on top of this, you can sort it out." He paused and then felt unable to resist the urge to leave with the final word. Rising from the sofa he stretched and began to leave. "Just so long as I don't walk in to find you sharing 'jam flavours' again…" He didn't need to turn around to see her blush.

"That was _one time_!" she shouted and he only _just_ managed to evade the book that _thumped_ into the wall where his head had been a moment before.

* * *

 **Before you all start shouting 'OOC! Too OOC!' there was a reason to all that in this chapter. As this is part 2 of the fallout from chapter 6, there needed to be some kind of feelings emoted from the two most emotionless (or so they claim) characters from the manga. This was hard to try and keep them as close to character, especially for L, when there are so many screwed up feelings hanging around. L is both easier and harder to write since I have Mitsu to balance him out but for Raito there will be some exposition on the OOC in the next chapter as, yes, you are probably as surprised as Soichiro in his emotiveness during this chapter.**

 **Hopefully though, they have stayed as much in character that they are not unrecognisable (also, anyone else love the idea of L arguing with a sibling of any kind, even Mello or Near?) but please tell me what you think. Constructive criticism is welcomed, but flames are not!**

 **Please leave a nice review and I will be back next week with some more Raito and somebody both new and old ;)**


	9. IX: The Puppet-master

**So, I'm back, the internet is fixed and there's a new chapter for you! And it's on time this week, kinda, so that's better. You only had to wait six days instead of seven. Anyway, moving on...**

 **Thank you to Fairwaters for reviewing once again, much appreciated. I was going to say thanks to those who favourited/followed but then realised that no one did this week, but oh well. I assume that everyone liked the last chapter, I haven't heard otherwise.**

 **So, on to the chapter and hopefully, this is up to standard, although only slightly shorter.**

* * *

Karabas Bretznev was bored. Or at least, that was one way to describe how he was feeling. More like that he was falling into the ever-deepening pit that held the feeling of nothingness that everyone felt when there was so little to do that even staring at the ceiling seemed like too much effort. There was nothing of note in his room anyway and he had nothing better to do than lie on his back and stare at the cracked and peeling yellowing paint on the ceiling of the room. At least it wasn't a padded cell.

He had been dreaming again, thinking back to some of the better times in his sad and lonely life. Thinking back to the only two people who still remembered that a person existed behind the second persona (at least that was how he referred to his constant ongoing breakdown at the least) made him both bitter and happy at the same time, swinging constantly between the two, although right now, the feeling was definitely bitter. There they were, across the world and enjoying life, while he was forced to sit here, staring at the ceiling of a building that was so run down that someone really needed to consider giving the stupid roof a new lease of life before the rain drenched him in his sleep.

It wasn't fair, he knew, to judge them this way. They had done everything they could to help him, to save him from the monster brewing beneath, the _thing_ under his skin that was still there. If not for them, he would have bathed in blood before setting himself on fire to burn in hell with them. It was a strange notion when looked at in hindsight, definitely unappreciated by those who had lost relatives to his breakdown, and he was reminded every time he closed his eyes. He had been dreaming lately of the trial that had led to the fourteen different psychiatrists that he knew would become fifteen, sixteen, perhaps even twenty eventually. Surely Dr Collins would soon realise that he was a lost cause and was only sane in the company of old friends.

 _Kill me_ he had once begged. _Kill me, let me join A where the rest of us cowards live. I deserve it_. Karabas shook his head, growling in an attempt to frighten those thoughts back into the void that he locked the other side in. Besides, they would never let him take his own life. That would make him just as bad as A, just as weak and as far from as strong as A too. _One would think that that sounds strange_ … he thought, wondering if the others remembered A the way he did.

There was a rattle outside the door, the sound of the locks turning, and Karabas briefly considered whether it would be worth the effort of turning his head to take notice of this new development. The routine was the same every day in the Brooklyn Psychiatric Hospital. He was locked in his room all day except from between ten o'clock and midday, where he would spend the time in the company of Dr Collins, and three o'clock to half past four, where he would spend an hour and a half wandering about the specially emptied grounds to make sure that he harmed none of the other inmates. By the sounds on the other side of the wall, he wasn't sure why they bothered. The others seemed perfectly capable of ripping themselves to bits without his help.

"Get up," the guard snapped, the rattle of handcuffs breaking the silence of the room. Karabas didn't make any movement towards obeying the order, knowing that by resisting, he would have a few extra moments in bed as the guard went to find a wheelchair, straightjacket and friend to bundle him into the entire lot. _I wonder if I could get a job as the next Houdini_ he thought blandly as the guard rapped on the door. "Move it, Dr Collins wants to see you!" Karabas frowned.

"I've already seen Dr Collins today." In fact, he had just broken Dr Collin's laptop by attempting to throw it at her head. The numbers had flickered for a brief moment before she had ducked fluidly out of the way.

"Something's come up. So are we going to do this the easy way or the hard way?" Karabas wondered vaguely if any of the guards _didn't_ watch over the top prison break programmes, or if they were trained to be as clichéd as possible. He decided that it really wasn't worth the bother of practicing again today so merely sat up and held out his hands, meek as you like. The guard sniffed at his innocent expression, snapping the cuffs on and giving them a hard tug so that Karabas was forced to stand or fall face first onto the floor. He decided that standing was far better than falling on the floor face-first and jumped up with the force from the guard and sent the man a bright smile, one of the many he held in his arsenal. _Not my favourite though. They're only for Mitsu and Lael_.

The walk was the same. They passed Dr Johnson who scowled at him, but that was nothing new. Karabas knew that Dr Johnson was one of those who had advocated the death sentence for him. In fact if it hadn't been for Lael standing in at the last moment- he really liked to pick his moments nowadays- that may have just happened, but instead he had gotten off on an insanity charge and had been locked up or carted around the country since. He had been here for the past six months, although it had been three years since he had last seen Lael, standing in front of a jury, no masks other than a name, making it out like he was giving evidence from a third party. Another pair of grey eyes had been looking on from the audience behind, wide and frightened but not for herself. Never for herself.

Karabas was soon shoved out of one memory and into a room, not the usual room either. He knew that this was not Dr Collin's office, he had been there several times, and it was not one of the therapy rooms. It felt more like someone's front room more than anything, with sofas, table, chairs, a couple of actual metal pieces of cutlery ( _I had almost forgotten what they looked like_ ) and, a TV. But no books which was a shame. He preferred books. At least the character's names were _supposed_ to be there.

"Hello Karabas. I hope I haven't intruded on any plans?" Dr Collins asked, polite as ever. He had learnt a long time ago that this woman was both tricky and easy-going at the same time. She appreciated his dry humour and sarcasm but was stone faced in the presence of the other side, of the beast. He could respect her for that.

"Oh, I wasn't doing much really. Counting the cracks in my bedroom ceiling and chiselling away at my escape tunnel," he said airily. She actually cracked a smile at that. "What have I supposedly done that has set the cat amongst the pigeons then?"

"Nothing. An old friend called in," Dr Collins replied smoothly. Karabas blinked at that. Nobody had called about him in the three years since he was sentenced away from the hell that had been prison. He had the odd visit from Mitsu but that was it.

"Who?" he asked.

"Miss Rue. She wanted to know if it were possible for you to join her and her brother out in Japan for a short while. A test to see how much better you have been doing." Dr Collins' face was a mask, as stoney-faced as it had been when he had entered the room.

"Dr Johnson would rather see me dead than outside this hospital," Karabas stated flatly.

"He would also rather not have you here at all." _So she is abandoning me. I wondered how long it would take_. "Unfortunately, he is not in charge of you, I am. And I think that a small trip away for a while may do you a world of good."

"Mhmm, yes it would. And a break from my presence would be good for you too I assume." Karabas wondered why he felt so bitter over this parting of the ways. Dr Collins was merely his psychiatrist and only two people in the world had never abandoned him in his life. Two people that had called to see if he could come and see them a world away. After his mother's abandonment, he should be prepared for everyone to leave.

"Oh, I'm afraid you're stuck with me," Dr Collins said, her lips curving into a smile. "You see, while I do trust you not to break _people_ in here, I'm not so sure about out there." A pause. "So I'm coming with you."

"You're… what?" It was hard to throw Karabas for a loop but Dr Collins still managed it at least once a week. He thought that she did it in order to keep him on his toes so that anything psychotic failed to kick in. But this was as far from what he had been expecting as anything. The numbers flickered in that odd way that they usually did, especially when he was confused.

"I'm going with you. I've always wanted to visit Japan and I'm sure you're anxious to meet with your old friends," Dr Collins said with that same smile that said she was politely laughing on the inside. This was normally when he grew so frustrated at her that it triggered some kind of rampage, mostly of her precious things, but this time he merely plopped into a seat, confused.

"You're not… leaving."

"No." _She's lying_ the other half whispered. _She always lies, just like the others. It would be so easy… so easy to watch those numbers fall with our hands around her throat. Or perhaps that pen in a vein._

 _But it's Mitsu that wants us in Japan_ his own voice in this whispered back, timid as a child. Sometimes he hated that he was always so scared of the other side, of the monster, but today he just wanted to be left alone by it. This was his chance to see them again, to set things back to the way they should be!

 _Things will never be the way they should be. I still exist._ Karabas growled and shook his head, trying to claw out that voice inside his head. It hadn't always been there, only since A…

 _Blood in the bathwater, didn't get there in time, stupid, stupid, stupid… The numbers stopped, I should have known!_ Two hands caught at his own, gently pulling them away from his head as he blinked away the after-images of that bathroom to find Dr Collins crouched in front of him.

"Better?" she asked, face blank once more. Karabas stared at her, at her face, her name, the numbers above her head. _She'll die old_ he thought vaguely, mind still twisted in the aftermath of flashback. In fact it kept trying to revert back, but every time it did he read her name. It was something to focus on, the present, so he did it again and again and again. _Johanna Collins, Johanna Collins, Johanna Collins…_ "Karabas?" she inquired softly. _Johanna Collins…_ "Would you like to return to your room now?"

"I want to go to Japan." The words were out before he could stop them, before he could check them to make sure that they actually made a sentence and weren't come kind of ramble. "I want to see Mitsu and-" He would have continued if he hadn't remembered that technically Lael didn't exist. Dr Collins seemed to get the message however. She nodded and then pulled something out of her pocket.

"Take these," she said, pressing two small tablets into his hand. "And don't try and choke yourself with them this time." He swallowed them dry and allowed himself to be taken back to his room. It was only when he collapsed on the bed that he realised he had been so out of it that he had allowed her to slip him sleeping pills.

* * *

The house was quiet when no one was around other than himself. Raito preferred the house like this, without any of the Task Force members inside making noise and with Misa away on a shoot in America. It was convenient that she wasn't here right now- that would only make this all the more complicated for himself. He had been sitting on his sofa in front of his laptop, intending to catch up on all the work that he had missed in an attempt to keep on top of the annoying amount of paperwork that detectives seemed to do (and he was _sure_ that L never did any so he must have left this up to Watari). But it was no good, just as it had been no good attempting to be fine earlier that day with his father. Out of everyone, he should have realised that Dad would be the most likely to notice that something was wrong.

But then they had had that talk which just seemed to mess things up even more.

He had thought that his head was a mess yesterday when confronted by this strange version of L, smuggling him out like some kind of dirty secret to hide from a stranger. A stranger that Raito didn't even know about, to add to the list of everything that was wrong with this situation. It was bad enough to come to grips with a case that was out of his control, an aspect of life that he couldn't dominate in, but this was on a while new level. Raito liked to think that he was capable of looking into cases without feeling, able to compute facts without bias. Now he was struggling with the tidal wave that was the fallout of meeting L again and he sighed, deciding that he was going to have to put off sorting out this paperwork once again to clear his head. He stood up, stretching, and headed into the kitchen in order to make himself some coffee.

First things first, he needed to come to terms with this fact that L no longer remembered him. That was a good thing though, he was now separated from all the suspicion of earlier… although L had still seemed wary of him and the fact that he had gone to such great lengths, first to dissuade him from entering, and then to keep him out of sight, was probably evidence against that. But it didn't matter- all he needed was the time to once again entice him into the web and cut him off whether that was through death or conversion it didn't matter. _You won't be killing him again_ whispered that voice, the one that had escaped it's cage. _You know you can't make yourself do it a second time_.

 _Yes I can_ he thought back through gritted teeth, shoving the image of _that_ day back where it belonged, attempting to push that voice with it. But it was no good, the dam was broken beyond repair and it seemed to revel in its new found freedom to torment Raito from inside his mind. When he had locked it away all those months ago, technically over a year now, he had given it what he had thought were the greatest of barriers, locking away all feelings that did not comply with what he had planned. Sure when he regained his memories with the Death Note he found that it had been worn away a little, but nothing that wasn't fixable. This disaster had ripped it to shreds and he found himself now with a disconcerting alter ego inside his head that countered nearly every move he made. It wasn't right and he didn't like it one bit but for now there was nothing he could do to defend himself against it but logic and cold calculation- much the same strategy as he had used to lock it up.

The next thing that he needed to sort through was the feelings that had been brought up earlier that day with his father, hearing about the true tragedy that had led to L's life being saved. _Why did he do it?_ Raito thought in frustration, sipping the still too hot coffee. _Dad never liked L from the start I'm sure, so why? It had to be something from that day, or maybe even respect for him to have asked the doctors to try to save him but not to pay the bills. I don't understand…_

 _I do_ his alter ego whispered. _I think I do anyway._

 _And what would you know_ he snapped back at it and it recoiled slightly, but it was far bolder now than it had been in years and it smiled at him with those stupid innocent eyes. _Wait, why am I giving you a face?_ He asked himself as it laughed at him. _You're not even real!_

 _I'm still a part of you. You might not want me here but I can't leave. Reject me all you like, you can't prevent my existence._ Raito recoiled from that, realising for the first time that this was what it must be like to slowly go insane. _Does that make me a psychopath?_

 _Yes._

 _Go away._

 _I can't. You know that._ Raito scowled and tried to turn this conversation back to the original point.

 _I still can't understand why Dad would pay for those bills, why he would be so concerned about L? It's not as if they had any kind of personal relationship that nobody knew about_ he thought and he could imagine the other side shaking its head at him.

 _Dad's more used to be emotional than you are. I can't imagine what it was like to know that someone is still alive, trapped in some kind of cocoon that is a coma. However hard this is for us, it must be harder for Dad and worse for Ryuzaki._

 _That's not even his real name_ Raito snapped, not wanting to think down that uncomfortable road. This was why he had locked the damn thing away. It just got in the way of all his logical thinking and deductions. Wjere had emotions ever got anybody but pain and trouble? Even L had discarded them, becoming a machine to solve crimes.

 _That's not true_ his other side protested. _He cares about us, like how we care about him. He cared about Watari before you murdured him._ The other side was pouting, Raito was sure of it through the disapproving tone that he was receiving. _No, it can't pout or frown or anything like that! It's not real!_

 _I'm still here._

 _Then go away. I need time to think without distractions._ The other side huffed, but surprisingly Raito thought that it retreated slightly and he seemed to have a better control over these pesky emotions that wouldn't leave him alone.

 _Alright, so Dad decided to pay for the bills because of some kind of emotional level that I don't understand… I can work with that. Maybe he was thinking that it could just as easily have been me and felt guilty that L has no family…_ That still didn't seem to fit, but it was the best that Raito could come up with. Personaly, he had a niggling feeling that his father wasn't quite sure why he had done it either. Soichiro Yagami, like his son, was not the spontaneous kind. It was enough for now to leave it all on something that only his father understood than to try and puzzle it out. There were greater priorities. Like the annoying Shinigami that had twisted himself into impossible shapes and was making very aggravating, very _loud_ complaints.

"Oh, Raito, please I _need_ apples!" Ryuk wheedled, rasping voice six times more grating when he was pleading for something. Raito just regarded him with disinterest, knowing that if he were to give in, the Shinigami would not respect him, would take advantage of its skills once more. Who knew what kind of information it knew or was intentionally retaining? It irked him that Ryuk had withheld the truth about L for so long, especially when it involved members of the Task Force.

"Don't worry Ryuk," Raito said pleasantly, not giving away any of the irritation he felt. "I'll buy you some…"

"Yes, please do that!"

"… Tomorrow."

"What!" This seemed to anger the Shinigami so much that he untwisted himself from the ridiculous position he was in to glare at Raito.

"You heard me. I'll buy you some more when I go shopping tomorrow." Truthfully, the house needed to be restocked today, usually a task that Misa occupied herself with, but what with Ryuk's punishment and her not getting back for another couple of weeks, he would go tomorrow instead when things were truly dire. It would mean a miserable dinner tonight and skipping breakfast tomorrow morning, but it would be worth it.

"You know, I could just write your name in the book and be done with it," Ryuk threatened. "And what would happen to your perfect world then?" Raito set his mug down, unperturbed. In fact, this conversation was helping to centre his thoughts back to where they were supposed to be.

"If you write my name in the book then you'll never get your apples," Raito pointed out, eyebrow raised. Ryuk merely scowled at the logic.

"You're no fun," he muttered as he turned and phased back through the wall. Raito sighed. _One problem down, now on to the next one…_ His thoughts were cut off by the phone ringing. Raito frowned, wondering who would be calling at this at night. He didn't have any close friends that would call so late or just randomly and none of his family were into spontaneously calling for no reason- if there was any news his father would have told him earlier or would wait until tomorrow. Hesitantly he picked up the phone, thinking that it was most likely Amane calling from American and, if so, he was prepared to tell her that she would be paying this month's bill.

"Hello," he said politely and then nearly dropped the phone when he heard who was really on the other end of the line.

"Hello Raito-kun," L intoned down the phone, sounding as bored as usual. "Is this not a convenient time?" _Damn it_ , he thought, angry that he had allowed any sound of surprise to pass through his lips.

"No, it's just me here right now." Inside he wondered why one earth _L_ was calling him _now_. He never did anything without reason, so he must be angling for something.

"Good." Raito suppressed any thought of anger at how the other man sounded. "I would like to invite you back to headquarters on Thursday 23rd March." _Why that date?_

"Why not tomorrow?" Raito asked.

"Not convenient."

"Really?" Raito said, trying not to sound too interested. "Why not?" Silence.

"Goodbye Raito-kun." With that, the line disconnected and Raito was left standing alone in the kitchen with the receiver in his hand wondering once more what on earth was going through the genius' head.

* * *

 **I will admit, writing Raito in this chapter was a lot of fun, especially the brief moments of clarity when he realises that he's almost developed this split personality. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did and also I hope that you can bear with me through the first part that once again seemingly has nothing to do with this... most of it. Although I think you can see where this might be going but if not, I'm not going to be giving the game away just yet ;)**

 **I apologise that L never really made an appearence in this chapter, or really anyone else of note other than the made-up Dr Collins and Raito's split personality. There will be more, especially when things start to heat up in the next chapter. As for anyone wondering where on earth Misa has gotten to in this story, she's not my favourite character and, honestly, for me she is the hardest to write as for me she is almost bland in personality past 'I love Light!'. I know that there are flashes of personality that aren't annoying in there, she just annoys me to no end at times, hence why she has disappeared for the moment. Unfortunately, since she _is_ cannon, I can't just forget about her and she will inevitably return, eventually, but for now, she is staying in America.**

 **Other than that, please leave a nice review of what you think, or don't whatever floats your boat I guess. I will see you next week with a new chapter!**


	10. X: Waiting

**Hey so I haven't dropped down dead or anything like that. For the past two weeks I have been EXTREMELY busy, spending more time away from home than at it, and therefore away from my laptop, and so have had very little time to write and by the time I got back to this (Thursday) something else came up -which I will get to in a mo- and so the quality of this chapter may have suffered slightly because I am not quite happy as to how the second half ended. But I thought that it was cruel to ask you guys to wait another couple of days since it _was_ now complete, and I may come back and edit this chapter to a more satisfactory level.**

 **As for what happened on Thursday, many things. If you don't live in England you may not know that that was results day for A levels (think NEWT's in Harry Potter except in more boring subjects), which I have been waiting on to find out if I am going to uni this year or should just give up and find an alternative life. But, good news, I GOT IN! Ahhhh! So I've now been busy sorting out accomodation, job, essential items etc. etc. and so have not had any time to write in the past few days either. But the good news is, while still busy this week with all of that, I will also have a ton of more time to write, so hopefully the next update will be both on time and much better.**

 **On a related note, in three weeks I shall be reporting to you not from my house in the outskirts of London, but from L's hometown itself, Winchester! And shall do so until I finish uni, or get thrown out, whichever happens first.**

 **Now, on to something that actually relates to this story. In answer to vitamist, yes I did know that Karabas isn't a real Russian name- I came across the name when I was looking for a name for B and then decided to incorporate this other idea I had about B. I didn't know what he looked like (heh, that would be weird) but I will be playing around with B's background, especially his relationship with his mother, a bit, hence the dodgy name. Not a major plot point, but I thought I would assure you that I didn't just type something random into Google and come up with the first thing that I found.**

 **Thank you to vitamist, Fairwaters and AnnaTheEmporium for reviewing and thank you to Wizard-Party-Forever, Unhorned Unicorn and WiReDtHeWrOnGwAy for favouriting/following this story in the last two weeks. I appreciate the support through the glaring gap that came down this week.**

 **Anyway, now onto what you came here to read: this week's chapter!**

* * *

 _He stood behind a one-way mirror, watching as they brought the prisoner forward into the courtroom. Mr Wammy had insisted that he didn't need to be here and honestly, this was the first time L had ever stood to watch over a trial in his life. But this was different from all the other cases that he had worked on- this time it was personal. He glanced over the crowds that had formed to see the end to this particular trial. There were the bereaved, the families of the three victims brutally murdered, sat in the front row, then behind them a crowd of apprentice lawyers, witnesses who had either already stood or were to stand today (except for him) and the supporters for the defence. It was the biggest trial of the year, had been going on for months and this would be the conclusion. Finally, sat at the back in the quietest corner of the room were the two people that he had been looking for- Mitsu and Mr Wammy, both of whom had blank faces._

 _The police sat the prisoner down, chaining him to the chair. L studied him carefully, wanting to know that this wasn't all some kind of mistake, that he hadn't been duped like some of the others. But everything he saw made him more convinced of his conclusions, as much as they were rooted in his own personal feelings as much as cold logic. The prisoner shivered in his seat, almost as if he were cold, sporadically shaking his head, glancing around the room with wild red eyes._

He tried to set himself on fire… _L found himself thinking staring through the glass at the shell of an old friend. If he hadn't grown up with him, if he hadn't been present for that first breakdown, for his running off a few months after A's death, he might never have recognised him. The once tastefully ruffled curls were an untidy matted mess, the gel and straightened locks having been roughly pulled out and not yet brushed. The make-up had been washed off to show a face far more pale and sunken than it had ever been- once handsome features hidden behind stark cheekbones and eyes heavy with bags that had never been there before. And those eyes… where once they had held warmth, there was nothing left but a wild energy, somewhere between crazy, fearful and desperate. L suspected he knew the cause, after all the number of people in the courtroom was overwhelming even for one who couldn't see names and lifespans, let alone being the one standing on trial on the wrong side of the law._

 _Mr Wammy had tried to caution him from speaking on this case. L had disagreed so vehemently the old man looked as if he might have gained whiplash. As machine-like as L could be when deeply involved in the hundreds of cases sent in to him a year, he was after all only human. He had emotions, even behind the wall he had constructed, but L allowed there to be holes. Some of them were just bigger than others._

 _The judge finally entered, making a note of all those present before glancing towards the glass that L stood behind. He sighed- he knew that for this to work he needed to be on the other side of the glass and so stood from his seat, grabbing the detested tie and wrapping it around his neck. The suit was one that had been worn before, on more occasions than most would think for the amazing L, but L rarely accompanied it with a tie, expect for times like this. Funerals, weddings and court-cases he mused- only one was a desirable place to be, if only for the drink._

 _No one noticed him entering, although there were a few complaints as he made his way forward through the throng of people to the area where witnesses still stood to give their verdict. The prisoner must have noticed him as he twisted round, eyes latching onto his own. L found himself thinking back to that dark moment, oil pooling around his feet, this man on the floor._ "Kill me!" _he had screamed. L shook the thought away and glanced over to where the first witness stood. Everyone had heard from the minor witnesses already and now it was time for the last three, starting off with the FBI Agent known as Naomi Misora._

" _This court opens the case of one, Karabas Bretznev, also under the alias of Beyond Birthday, alleged serial killer of three victims- Charles Buford, columnist in Believe Bridesmaid, Elizabeth Tantler, schoolgirl, and Taylor Channing, Manager of the HSBC LA branch. Evidence given by the Defence indicates that the killer was not in his right mind. Evidence by the prosecution indicates that the subject in question is undoubtedly guilty. To continue the evidence given by the prosecution today are witnesses FBI Agent Misora and Mr Smith. Final evidence for the Defence to be given by Mr Rue." The prosecutor's eye twitched as he stood up._

" _Your Honour, I must object. All witness evidence for the Defence was given three days ago," he stated over the mumblings of the crowd. L watched passively as Naomi turned, searching out for the one person she least expected to be there. Fortunately, she was looking for the man with bags under his eyes, unhealthy pale skin and drab clothing. Mitsu had stated that if he were going to give this evidence he was to sleep properly, eat properly and dress properly if it was the last thing she did._

" _For all the assholes in the world, you need to look the part, despite the fact that I'm with you against convention."_

" _Being against convention won't help us make a case here," he had agreed and ran through it once more in his head. Although it didn't make much difference in his appearance, it was just enough to throw someone who didn't know him all that well off. He had also allowed Mitsu to cut his hair last night, letting it brush the nape of his neck rather than the tangled bush that was closer to his shoulder blades that he had been sporting lately because he couldn't be bothered to get it cut with how busy he had been. He decided to make it his mission to keep it at least close to this length now however- having Mitsu come near him with a pair of scissors was fifty-fifty that there might be a disaster._

 _The judge merely looked at the prosecutor until he sat down once again before continuing like there had been no interruption in his opening speech._

" _I call to the stand Mr Joshua Smith." A small wiry old man who looked as if he spent an immense amount of time in the hot Californian sun made his way up to the witness stand, overlooking everybody nervously. One officer approached him with a bible that he placed his hand over. L watched him carefully as the officer spoke the words most of the world knew well._

" _Do you swear to speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me God?"_

" _I do," the man whimpered, eyes wide. The bible was removed and the prosecutor stood. The evidence from this man was only slightly irrelevant- he had been the man to discover the first murder through his job as a janitor in the office building that the writer, Charles Buford, had been working in. He gave his evidence in a rasping voice, intimidated by the flashing cameras, the demanding questions from both sides and the general atmosphere of the whole case. It might also have something to do with the fact that the prisoner was staring directly over his head, no doubt reading the name and lifespan there, dedicating it to memory. If people knew what he could do, very few would have been brave enough to take the witness stand L had once mused, and he knew that it was true. No one wanted a known serial killer to be able to track them down and shorten how long they had left to live._

 _Finally the man was done and the judge allowed him to go. He shoved his way past even L, still shaking slightly, but he stayed, settling in the back close to Mitsu. And then it was the turn of Naomi Misora, and the evidence she had to give, he knew, would make it very difficult for him to plead his case. After all, a crazy person was not supposed to pull off the act of a normal person- then again, L knew that his own behaviour was hardly considered normal outside of Wammy's House._

" _I call to the stand Miss Naomi Misora, detective under the FBI." There was a slight murmuring to that, those behind L muttering about how this would be the damning evidence that would finally have the maniac locked away. Naomi didn't react, not when she walked up to the witness box, nor when she took the oath and sat back down as the questioning began. L could sense the unease in the room growing the longer her statement carried on. This was being aired live to thousands of homes, with millions of people watching and judging. But the problem was they only knew half the story. Even L didn't have all the pieces of B's descent into madness but he knew that something had to have happened. Overwhelming as he talent might be, B had never lost it as completely as he had now, never so much as hurt a fly if he could help it. Dead bodies were one thing, living ones quite another._

" _And you say that the suspect in question managed to successfully fool you and any other authority figures you came upon that he was the detective L?" Misora seemed slightly insulted by the undertone of patronisation in the prosecutor's voice, as if he thought that it was obvious that this could all be explained because of Misora's mistakes. But they weren't mistakes that any other officer would have made. After all, nobody had met him before in such a way, nor had they seen Mr Wammy's true face and so therefore didn't know that he kept him around at all times, that Mitsu would sometimes pop in to see him when he was in the States, no matter where in the country she was. They were small things, but things that no one else other than an old intimate friend would know, such as B._

 _Sometimes being so secretive was a drawback, and this only highlighted that to the extreme._

" _Yes, he did. It wasn't until he tried to kill his own persona that I realised that he was, in fact, the murderer," Naomi stated and the prosecutor nodded and began to move on._

" _And there was nothing that may have made you suspect that he was more than he said?" Naomi glanced towards B who was staring so intently at her name and lifespan, she might have thought that he was trying to kill her with his eyes. She seemed uneasy with the change in appearance, obviously wary of the true face of the killer she had been tracking. Such an ordinary face if you didn't look at the eyes. L watched her too, knowing that she would only recognise him once on that stand and that tonight she would receive a visit from Quillish Wammy with a contract that swore her to secrecy. She would most likely question his decision to speak out here for the rest of her life._

" _There were some odd habits that he had," she started hesitantly. "But I wasn't sure that they were his…" The prosecutor prompted her on with raised eyebrows. "He would practise laughing in the middle of the night and ate jam out of jars with his fingers. At the time they seemed like nothing more than odd quirks of a mad genius although in hindsight they were actually clues as to his real identity," she admitted, glancing towards her lap. Clearly she was frustrated with herself that she had failed to notice such a thing. The prosecutor nodded and allowed the defence lawyer to step forward. Like L, the defence lawyer knew that his client was both guilty and insane. He was not pleading for an innocence charge but merely insanity. Whether that would save him or not, was another matter._

 _The defence had little to say other than to question her thoughts into the state of Mr Bretznev's mind, whether she believed him stable and if she thought he was aware of what he was doing. L could have answered them all for her with the truth. No, no and yes. He was aware but he could not stop himself all the same. In those few moments between when Misora had left to get help and the police arriving, B had begged for him to finish him off before he could hurt anyone else, before what he labelled 'the monster' got out once again. B had moments of clarity but he needed help far more than A ever had._

 _Finally it was L's turn to move towards the stand._

" _The court calls forward Mr Ryuzaki Rue, speaking for the detective L." There was a quiet uproar at that as the journalists in the room began to have a field day. The detective L had never spoken for anyone before, especially not in defence of those criminals he put down. Personally, L thought that there was a special place in hell reserved for journalists and he despised every one- his reasons were his own and it was none of their business why B could not die._

 _Taking a deep breath, L pushed his way to the front, to take the stand for the first and last time in his life._

* * *

L woke up in the early hours of the morning, for no other reason than he couldn't sleep. The nightmares had begun to re-surface, all now sporting a new face. Raito Yagami seemed to be in every one, face twisted in some inhuman way, lurking in the background at all times. In one he had been smirking in the darkness as he and Mitsu were thrown out of their house, in another strangling him, smiling all the while and laughing as L struggled to breathe. In this latest one, he had been dreaming about B's trial, except when he went to take the stand, he was right there in the front row, glancing down at his watch as if counting something down.

L didn't know what that meant but it frightened him in some way. There was not much left in the world that could frighten him but these nightmares were beginning to get a little too real to be nothing. Normally he dreamed about failing- failing B, failing Mitsu, failing the victims of those he hunted down in the name of justice. These were more personal somehow and he had to get to the bottom of it.

Deciding that he was not going to be getting any more sleep tonight, he slipped out of bed and padded through into the kitchen, nosing through the fridge to the punette of strawberries that he knew was there. He had helped Mitsu with the shopping only the day before, partly to get out of the building that left nothing to do other than stew on the fact that none of his memories seemed to be returning and partly because he enjoyed the new found freedom of being able to move around, even if it wasn't far. Mitsu had made him promise to rest if he felt tired- in fact he was fairly sure that the threat had been that she would be sending him back to the hospital if he did anything reckless like before again. Deciding that he would rather stay in the building than return to the detested hospital, he had agreed and so far, he was getting better a lot faster. True, he was sleeping more often than before (it seemed like a waste to sleep through five hours of daylight a day at times, but then Mitsu was right that he could make them up later- there wasn't much an amnesiac detective could really do in a case he couldn't remember other than rest, read and catch up on all the notes), but that only bothered him when the nightmares came and those only appeared at night.

It wasn't long before Mitsu appeared, yawning and squinting at him in the early morning light.

"You are aware it's five in the morning right?" she complained as she stretched and rubbed at one eye, almost simultaneously.

"Yes." She scowled at him and nicked a strawberry.

"This is far too early to be up," she muttered, stealing another one. "You're supposed to be resting." He paused a moment to play with the strawberry he was holding before eating it.

"I couldn't sleep," he said eventually, watching as she then stole a whole handful, leaving only three in the bottom of the bowl. Her face softened.

"The nightmares again?" she asked, although she didn't have to. He was fairly certain that she had her own fair share of them, but it wasn't as if she was going to tell him. Mitsu was as close lipped about some things as he was and he knew that, just as he tried to protect her, she tried to protect him from things as well. It was touching to know that at all times, there was someone who cared about him enough to just drop everything and come live in Japan the next day like it was easy to do.

There was another reason that they were both awake but neither of them was going to state it to the other when it was so obvious. Today was Monday, the day that B would be arriving. He remembered the dream of B's trial, remembered the atmosphere in that court room that day. He had calculated that there was only a fifteen percent chance that B would be cleared through the insanity route- the American courts were fickle things and he had seen many in the same spot as B, clearly severely ill, who were sent for the death sentence through a technicality. Mitsu needed no reminder of that day either- it was one that they had silently agreed never to speak about again, like so many of the others, including the night of A's death.

They spent the next few hours of the morning doing nothing. L entertained himself with a book while Mitsu started on a new sketch- he had never spoken about her tendency to start painting when she was nervous since it seemed to calm her down far better than he ever could, although he knew that she appreciated any comfort he was able to offer her when the chance came. Eventually, whatever painting she was working on seemed to frustrate her so much that she dropped the pencil and flopped down on the sofa next to L who had already given up trying to concentrate on the book in front of him, instead opting to watch Mitsu instead.

"He's gotten a lot better," she said quietly.

"I know," he murmured, unsure as to why they were talking so quietly. It was something that was instinctual, something that Mitsu probably understood better than he did, like those feelings he had had when he let Raito into the building. That was something he still could not quite process, no matter how many times he had gone back over and analysed it- and in the past few days he had had plenty of times to do so.

And now here they were, waiting for the one person that could make or break this case. He knew that B now had a clear grasp on what was real and what was not, but that was through Doctor Collins' notes. L had spoken to both her and B over the phone but B had only been there for the past year and he had not been in the States for nearly two- the last time he had seen B, he was under the care of a man called Dr Harrison, who B did not get on with at all. In fact, L had had to arrange to have him moved before he ripped the man's face off in another fit and the entire journey to the next hospital had been unpleasant at best. Before this case had come up, he had been planning a trip over to see B, to see the progress that he was making under Dr Collins, one of the few doctors that L had come across willing to get to know B past the 'psychopath' image that kept coming up, but that had chance had passed when Kira started killing off criminals.

"Did you tell him about what happened?" he asked. Mitsu, on the other hand, was one of B's regular visitors, sending him news of L whenever she could and handing over letters that L knew Dr Johnson would never let through. She took him other things as well, keepsakes and sweets that she knew he would like from her travels, although he imagined that again, Dr Johnson would not let him keep those in any vicinity to the other patients or himself- the man in L's opinion was as incompetent as Dr Harrison.

Mitsu paused before answering, thinking about it. "I don't think I ever told him about the coma and memory loss but I did explain what had happened to Dr Collins. She said that she would give him the news when she thought that he was up for it. Apparently he was a bit shocked that she was coming with him on this trip and he wasn't just being shipped off elsewhere." L smiled at that. After all this time, it would be unlikely if B _hadn't_ developed some kind of expectation of being left behind. Even his own mother had left him alone in the world, disappearing one day while he was at school back when he was still living in Russia. No one else knew about that outside of their little trio, apart from perhaps My Wammy, although he was dead now.

There was also something else bothering him that he couldn't quiet put his finger on. In just over twenty four hours, Raito Yagami would not only be haunting his dreams, but his reality as well. There was still that strange pit where his memories of what had gone on between them in the nine months that L could no longer remember and he didn't know what to do with it. His notes all pointed to one thing: Raito was Kira and therefore he could not be trusted. The ensuing three months in which he had been in a coma had only increased that suspicion, despite the fact that it was painfully obvious that Raito was doing everything that he could to prove that he _wasn't_ Kira.

"I've made the right decision haven't I?" L asked, changing the subject. Mitsu eyed him for a moment, trying to work out exactly his meaning, although at this point L didn't mind whatever way she took it. It wasn't often that he second guessed himself, but the glaring holes in his memory made it hard to be sure that he truly was making the correct decisions. Bringing B into another country was a big step for everyone involved and he had wondered in the past couple of days whether he was making the right choice, or if he should even be making that choice for him. Even though he hadn't ordered him to come here, Dr Johnson would have sent him anyway, and he wondered if perhaps coming to place with such a high population density would just make B's episodes worse. The more people he was in contact with, the worse he got, no matter whether it just gave him a headache or sent him spiralling down that dark tunnel he had found himself in three years before.

Mitsu placed one hand over his own gently, clinging on to it like when they had been reunited all those years ago in the Wammy's House medical room. She, like him, would never speak to anyone else of these moments. "You've done all you can. I think that you made the right decision with B as well as with Raito. It doesn't matter what the outcome of the session is because it will be one step closer to figuring this all out." He nodded and stared down at the last three strawberries, still sitting uneaten in the bowl from all those hours ago. Just like the three of them, no one wanted them enough to care about what happened to them so long as they disappeared.

"Thank you," he said, not looking up. Then he took in a deep breath and glanced at the clock. It was half past eleven, well past the time they should have left to pick up B and Dr Collins on time from the airport. "Although if we don't move, I don't think either of them will thank us." Mitsu followed his gaze and swore in three different languages.

"We'll never get there in time!" He raised an eyebrow and shook his head at her.

"You've been in the garage in the basement. You know there are plenty of ways to get there on time," he said, smiling as he snatched a set of keys from the table. Mitsu had a habit of leaving them in a bowl, all jumbled together and unless you were aware of which keys belonged to which vehicle, there was little chance of someone stealing anything of value or getting into a room they weren't supposed to be in. It wasn't the most secure of ways to keep keys, but it was good enough for a building with as much security as this one- it might also have had something to do with Mitsu shouting that if he got more security she would be moving out.

Right now however, her eyes lit up when she saw the keys he was holding.

"I've got shotgun," she said, bouncing to her feet, grinning like a schoolgirl and racing off for the elevator. It was almost fun to try and catch up with her, enough so that he was able for now to put the issue of Raito from his mind.

* * *

 **Before anyone gets at me about court proceedings and how they work, I'm going on what I know off the top of my head here as I had literally no time for research this week. Hopefully I've done nothing too offensive in court jargon etc. I'm just putting it out there before anyone starting ripping into me about it.**

 **I'm sorry that the second half doesn't feel quiet the same way as the first. Or at least,t hat was how it felt to me when I was writing it, although I have been writing like crazy these past two days trying to finish this chapter, and something about it just felt off. Some parts felt good, others not, but we go back into plot related stuff in the next chapter, which will hopefully be much better and feel a lot less awkward to write.**

 **Please leave a review of what you think, even if you agree that this chapter it sub-par to the others or not. Thank you!**


	11. XI: The Puppet-Master Arrives

**So I'm back on time this week with a chapter that I am much happier with. You would not believe the fun I had writing this chapter, and I hope that you guys will be happy with it too- all that time I had this week kind of paid off.**

 **Thank you to Fairwaters who reviewed this week. I think you enjoyed the chapter far more than I did but I'm glad that you are enjoying the character of Mitsu. I am too.**

 **So moving on to the chapter, please enjoy.**

* * *

Soichiro stared at the boy in front of him, wondering not for the first time, whether L was in his right mind. The boy that had arrived was nothing like what he had expected. Both L and Mitsu had been rather quiet on the subject of their joining member from the States. The most he had been told was that he was an old friend from Wammy's House, the orphanage they had grown up in and had something to do with the mysterious figure of A that Mitsu still refused to talk about. L had said nothing on the subject, leaving Soichiro to wonder what exactly the pair were hiding and how it affected this case. Some part of Soichiro wanted to ask, but another part was too afraid of the consequences and what it might reveal about not only L, but also himself and his son.

He turned his gaze on the woman that had arrived with him, who Mitsu had introduced as Dr Collins, keeping one eye on the prowling figure pawing through the fridge for god knows what. She was not the tallest of people, standing at perhaps five foot three, mousy brown hair tied back in a practical ponytail and glasses kept on the top of her head unless she was reading something. Currently, she was scribbling side-notes down on the reports that L had set in front of her, completely at ease with the others in the room.

"Mr Yagami, this is Dr Johanna Collins. Dr Collins this is Chief Detective Soichiro Yagami of the NPA. He's also the father of Raito Yagami, the person I would like you to examine," Mitsu said politely from her perch on the arm of one of the sofas. She had been talking in earnest with the new boy when Soichiro had walked in, but the moment he and Matsuda entered, he had frozen up, red eyes darting around their faces and above their heads, muscles tense. Soichiro had backed up slightly but Matsuda merely walked calmly into the room and set himself down at one of the computers, rifling through some loose pages and booting it up as if this were completely normal to come in everyday to find suspicious characters in the control room. L had barely reacted other than to give him an approving nod, one eye fixed on the newcomer, the other on the computer screen in front of him, reading through some news report or the other. Soichiro was no longer sure what _exactly_ L was researching, but he knew that it would either pertain to the Kira case or some other case set aside for his other aliases of Eraldo Coil or Deneuve.

"Hello Mr Yagami," Dr Collins said, her voice soft as she looked up from the notes and gave him a warm smile. Soichiro wondered if she had any children of her own and used this very smile to put them at ease. She then turned to Mitsu and asked, rather offhandedly, "Do you have any jam?"

"Yes, it's in the cupboards rather than the fridge as it's all unopened," she said, suddenly turning to the boy and stating, "And on that note, you're limited to a jar a day."

"Excuse me?" The boy had appeared from the other side of the fridge door, eyes narrowed.

"I refuse to clear up constant jam stains off the floor. It's bad enough with all the mud, I don't need people thinking we have some kind of axe murderer in the house," she said smirking. He raised an eyebrow.

"Bit late for that isn't it?"

"Have you killed anyone with an axe?" she asked sweetly. The boy thought on that a moment.

"I threw one at Dr Harrison's head once."

"Did he die?"

"No," the boy said and frowned. "Unfortunately." Both L and Mitsu seemed to simultaneously roll their eyes at this and Dr Collins shook her head.

"One jar a day. It's more than you have at the hospital," she said, voice clipped in professional tones. "And you can clean up your own stains." Something darkened in the boy's eyes and Soichiro had a brief moment to regret not bringing his gun when L intervened.

"There's no one here to clean up after us except ourselves. If you're well enough to undo a jam jar, you're well enough to clear up the stains left behind," L stated firmly. The boy pouted, but instead went through a doorway to the side that Soichiro knew led to the kitchen and disappeared.

"Sorry about that," Dr Collins said pleasantly, as though nothing out of the usual had happened. "Sometimes B can be a bit of a handful."

"What's wrong with him?" Soichiro asked, too unnerved to realise that he was being rude. Dr Collins didn't seem to mind, setting the notes aside, to where Soichiro could see that it was some kind of profile on Raito. He would have said something, if he hadn't already agreed with Mitsu to allow her to give Raito a session, if only to dispel any lingering doubts about Raito's being Kira. That nagging sensation in the back of his mind had only gotten stronger in the past few days, and now he was nervously waiting for Raito to arrive not too long from now. L didn't particularly care what time they turned up and so he had told Raito to arrive after himself and Matsuda, so as to give L some warning beforehand. Again, he wasn't entirely too sure why he had done that either.

"I'm afraid that that would be a breach of doctor-patient confidentiality to tell you," she replied. "But be assured, he's well enough not to harm any of you at the moment."

"Is he going to help us with the case?" Matsuda asked. Dr Collins turned to look at him, then L.

"I would assume so," she said. "I'm afraid I never got your name sir?"

"Oh!" Matsuda blushed, "I'm Matsuda. Matsuda Touta." He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly at having not introducing himself sooner. Dr Collins merely smiled, something she seemed to be good at. There was something unnerving about that smile, something that said she spent more time than was necessary analysing your movements. Then again, he supposed that was what made her good at her job.

"However, I am glad that you got here before your son Mr Yagami," Dr Collins said, turning away from Matsuda and changing the topic so bluntly that Soichiro knew she would not put up with the prior subject being broached any further. "I have some questions for you." Soichiro nodded and sat down opposite her, trying to calm his mind. The room was quiet, almost silent except for the sound of L and Matsuda softly tapping away at their respective keyboards. Surprisingly, L had no sign of any sweets in front of him and Mitsu seemed perfectly content to sit and watch this conference.

"Of course, go ahead," he said, indicating that he was as ready as he was ever going to be.

"I must warn you Mr Yagami, that some of these questions may be hard for you," she said bluntly, although not without some semblance of pity. "If you don't wish to answer them, I cannot force you, but it would help with the upcoming session with Raito." Soichiro frowned at that. She had notes from L on Raito, what on earth did she need him for? But he wasn't one to question a professional at their job, and if she could clearly care for someone as… troubled as the boy in the kitchen, she would be good enough to be clear on Raito's profiling. "I know you're wondering what this is all about," Dr Collins continued, surprising Soichiro, "but there are some events that I would like to go over that are not entirely clear in these notes, or omitted completely. I assume this is because certain events occurred causing them to not be updated for the past three months and I would like some extra background to them that can be obtained through someone closer to him than at best, a friend." Soichiro sat in amazement, not only at her expert way of stepping around the issue of L's comatose state and amnesia, but also the way that she seemed to implicate that this information was crucial somehow.

"If you believe that this is necessary," he said carefully, suddenly numb and tired at the same time, dreading the day's outcome, "perhaps we should begin." Dr Collins nodded, noted something down on a notepad that was sat next to her before flipping to a different page, one with notes already on it, and began.

"Tell me, throughout this investigation, what have you noted about Raito's attitude towards this case?" Soichiro thought on that a moment. At the beginning, Raito had been insistent on joining, although had taken a break after his own stress-induced heart attack. And then there had been his imprisonment, being chained to L and the incident with Higuchi and the Shinigami… all of which Raito had taken particularly well, just as he had expected from his son. But he had to admit, that something seemed to shift after that, a strange atmosphere starting to pervade through the case, one that only increased after L's near death experience.

"Raito has always been dedicated to the case," Soichiro started, trying to think through all of what she might be asking for. "After the… incident… he moved out of our house and moved into an apartment with his girlfriend, Misa Amane."

"Did his attitude change any time before that? Did he ever seem to act slightly differently before or after any such incidences?" Dr Collins asked, heedless of how awkward Soichiro felt discussing this in front of L. There was a small part of him that felt like this was more of an interrogation than a brief Q&A session about his son.

"Not that I have noticed. Other than a growth in intensity to discover Kira's true identity after it," Soichiro answered, for some reason feeling unsatisfied with that answer. It tasted sour, as if he were lying somehow but it was true. He _hadn't_ but if there had been one in those cells, he had been locked away from him, unable to watch, unable to bear what he had allowed L to put his _son_ through, his smiling happy little boy. But no matter what, it still felt like a lie. Dr Collins' face was soft but she merely wrote down a few more notes before moving on to the next question.

"I've noted here, in these notes, that your son has a strong sense of justice. Has he always had that?" Soichiro squirmed slightly but felt happy enough to answer this one. Raito had always been insistent about justice and fairness, even when he was small.

"Yes. Although that was probably something that he picked up from me," he said, for some reason feeling defensive. Dr Collins jotted down a few more notes, not looking up.

"I wasn't criticising your parenting Mr Yagami. Many children of law enforcers have an affinity towards what is fair or not." She finally looked up, as if reading his face. Mitsu was quiet, also watching him but not interrupting. He got the feeling that this was all something she could have told him herself, but knew that he wouldn't believe it unless it was coming from the mouth of a proven professional- although she had never said anything to the contrary of her own qualifications. "Speaking of children. You have a daughter do you not?"

"Yes," he said curtly. "I believe those were in your notes." He would have said more but at that moment, the boy walked back into the room, one hand holding a half-empty jam jar, the other fishing jam out of it. Soichiro was too shocked at this to continue, but Dr Collins just ignored him. The boy settled on another one of the seats, crouched on it not unlike how L had before the coma, one hand scooping jam out of the jar, tongue flicking out to lick it away. His red eyes were set to staring at something above his head. Soichiro was about to open his mouth and ask if Dr Collins could remove him when she asked him another question.

"How is Raito's relationship with his sister? As strong as it was when they were children?"

"I-I'm not sure," Soichiro said, unnerved by the boy's presence. "He used to help her out with her studies a lot when he was still at school, but he's normally too busy to come home and see her and his mother nowadays." Dr Collins' face was a mask but he got the feeling that she didn't believe him. The boy made no attempt to disguise his contempt that this statement, curling up his lip, jam smeared across it, looking an awful lot like blood. Soichiro tried to shake that thought away but couldn't. Dr Collins seemed able to sense his unease however and merely nodded, writing up some final notes before putting them to one side.

"Thank you Mr Yagami, you've been very helpful," she said quietly. The she turned her gaze on the boy, one eyebrow raised, handing her notes to Mitsu for her to look through. She seemed to skim read them, nodding and handing them back once she was finished. She then stood up and snatched the jar out of the boy's hand.

"Hey, give that back!" the boy shouted. "I need that!"

"I think you've had enough for one sitting," Mitsu said pointedly, a smile forming on her lips. The boy rolled his eyes, hands coming to his throat in fake gargling noises. Dr Collins looked up for a brief moment, leaving Soichiro to wonder if the boy had suicidal tendencies, before disregarding the pair and returning to her notes. There was the faint sound of a buzz, but the commotion where Soichiro was made it impossible to concentrate on anything else.

"Everything… going dark…" the boy moaned dramatically, flopping off the chair onto the floor. "Need… jam…"

"You can have some for high tea. We'll have scones and cream and tea," Mitsu teased, for that was what this was Soichiro realised, although in far too a realistic manner than he would have preferred. The boy didn't react so much as to let out a single breath and becoming so still, Soichiro wondered if he truly _had_ expired. Mitsu merely rolled her eyes and placed the jam jar on the table just as the doors to the room opened to allow Raito into the room.

* * *

Raito stared around at what was once the command centre of the Kira investigation in shock. The room was no longer the bare, minimalist work space that suited both himself and L, but a complete and utter _wreck_. Lining one wall were boards set up with notes tacked on to them and pictures, some of which were so graphic that Raito quickly looked away, more papers were overflowing on the line of computer screens and the coffee table with no semblance of order, an artist's easel had been set up in one corner and there seemed to be three L's in the room. It took his shocked mind a moment to realise that actually, L was sitting at the monitors with Matsuda, while the one on the floor was actually a boy of the same age and the one stood next to the sofa where a rather professional looking woman sat was a girl. His father was staring down at the floor, where the boy was lying, and Raito found himself thinking that someone must have just died in the room.

"What _happened_?" he asked, too shocked to come up with anything more coherent. The girl glanced up at him then around the room.

"We decided to redecorate," she said blankly. "Minimalist décor was boring." There was a quiet snort from the floor.

"Is… Is he ok?" Raito asked, realising that the boy on the floor was _not_ dead, just doing a good impression of being so. The boy cracked open one eye, causing Raito to take a step back at the shocking brilliant crimson that his eyes were.

"I'm a corpse," he said simply, before shutting his eye again. The girl glanced down.

"Corpses don't talk."

"This one does."

"That would make you a zombie."

"You're in Japan. Apparently here, they're called Shinigami." Raito blanched while L just looked as if he were containing a smile. The woman on the couch had no such problem, sniggering quietly under her breath.

"Hello again, Raito-kun," L said as he got up from his chair. He was still not dressed in white as Raito was used to- today he was wearing a blue t-shirt and jeans, hair looking as if it had actually _seen_ a brush, despite the fact that it was still not styled. The bags under his eyes seemed lighter and he wasn't quite as pale as Raito remembered him. "Ignore B, he's suffering from jam overdose." Raito had no idea as to how to answer that, instead fixing his attention on the girl he had mistaken as L. She was tall and slim, slightly shorter than L when standing upright, and shared the same odd features- thick black hair, pointed face, pale skin and large dark grey eyes that seemed black. She was staring at him with an intensity no less than L's. Raito realised that she must have been the girl who had been following them, making her the mysterious Mitsu. In the aftermath of everything that had happened he had briefly forgotten that she had existed.

"Who are your friends?" Raito asked, recovering his outer composure. It was only now that he realised that everyone was looking at him, the two women the most intently, as if waiting to see what he would do. _This is nothing like what I expected this meeting to be about_ Raito thought, wondering what was going on. At first he had been elated (through that damn voice again) to be seeing Ryuzaki, to have been _invited_ back to headquarters, and planned to use this to his greatest advantage. Then he had been apprehensive about why he had had to wait- clearly the new arrivals were what he had been waiting for- and figured that something about the Kira case had come up, something that only he and L together could work out. Meeting a near carbon copy of L and a clearly mentally challenged boy was _not_ what he had envisioned.

"This is B. He was living in America before this and this is Dr Collins, his psychiatrist," L said, gesturing first to the 'corpse' on the ground, and then to the professional-looking woman sat on one of the sofas amongst all the paperwork. Raito supposed that anyone who believed that they were a corpse would need constant supervision and dismissed her with a simple polite nod. The woman narrowed her eyes and jotted something down on the notepad on her lap. "And this is Mitsu. I'm sure you remember her," L said, one hand landing on her shoulder. Something in his tone reminded Raito of those days he used to take Sayu to school for some reason. Almost the sense of _she's my sister, back off_ , although Raito didn't know for sure whether they were related.

"It's nice to meet you face-to-face," Raito said politely, holding out his hand. The girl- Mitsu- just looked at it coldly.

"I don't shake hands with serial killers," she stated. The boy on the ground glanced up at her and, despite the fact that she could only have seen him out of the corner of her eye, rolled her eyes. "You don't count." Gratified, he went back to being a corpse on the ground. For once, feeling slightly out of his depth, Raito turned instead to something he could rely on to be rational. L was merely watching the brief exchange with abstract curiosity, as if he had heard it all before. Letting a slight nervous cough pass through his lips he retracted his hand, allowing L to see the question in his eyes while his father stood.

"Mitsu, I must remind you that nothing has been proven yet," his father said firmly, looking disapproving. This didn't seem to have any impact on Mitsu however as she merely turned to the table and picked up a sketchbook and pencil. He seemed to sigh and greeted his son as one should properly be greeted.

"Could someone please explain to me what it going on?" Raito asked once the pleasantries were done with. Neither B nor Mitsu looked as if they would give up the information willingly and L was still looking at him with that hint of protectiveness. _What did I do?_ He wondered.

 _Isn't it obvious? He wants to protect his little sister from us_ said that voice, the one he just _could not_ get rid of.

 _We don't know that they are related for sure_ he snapped at it.

 _And who would she be otherwise?_ It asked, crossing its arms. It seemed cranky today, as if it had gotten as little sleep last night as he had. _Oh, wait, it would have_. Deciding that it would be too much effort to argue with it, he merely looked to his father to provide the answer.

"Raito," his father started, seeming nervous, which only made that feeling of apprehension grow in the back of his mind, "L and I have come to an agreement. With your permission, we would like you to have a session with Dr Collins here, to prove or disprove the theory that you are Kira." Raito blinked, wondering if this could finally be his chance to throw L off once and for all. If a qualified psychiatrist (and she would have to be qualified to deal with the train wreck on the floor) could tell L that he had nothing in common with Kira, which would be the aura he would put across, he would be announced as innocent as he could be in L's books and the man, amnesia or not, would begin to look elsewhere for suspects, allowing Kira to grow in the background. It was as if the perfect plan had just dropped into his lap and he gave his father a small smile.

"If it will prove my innocence once and for all," he said, "I would be happy to consent." His father gave him an approving smile as the woman, now introduced as Dr Collins, stood with a smile.

"Wonderful. It would be best if we started now, don't you think?" she said politely gesturing towards the doors. "There's a room just down here that we can use."

"Good luck Raito," Matsuda called from the other side of the room, putting Raito's teeth on edge. He didn't need luck- he was a god and gods made their own luck through power and skill.

Dr Collins led him out of the room and down the corridor to the lift. Wondering which room she had decided to use, he merely followed her, wanting to put out the feeling that he was calm, collected and innocent. After all, he had been able to charm practically everyone he knew into making them believe that he _wasn't_ Kira, despite certain pieces of evidence that he had had to work hard to make _go away_.

 _Not everybody believed us_ the other half pointed out. _L never did. He was always convinced that we were Kira and he knows it even now, without his memories._

 _He's been influenced by the wrong people. I can make this work- all I have to do is charm this woman like I have Misa and Takada and he will be forced by the others to stop looking at me as if I am Kira._ It was a satisfying thought but the other half didn't seem convinced.

 _She's a professional psychiatrist. She's trained to spot lies._

 _Not mine. She may be a professional but no one is good enough to see the real me._

 _L did_. Raito would have ground his teeth at the thing, especially when it decided to continue. _L saw you better than you see yourself._

 _L knows nothing about me!_ He thought back savagely, glancing to the side to notice that Dr Collins was leading him out of the elevator. They were on the tenth floor and Raito suddenly felt apprehensive about which room she had decided to pick. The other half just sniffed, turning its back to him.

 _Then what am I, if you truly know everything about yourself?_ Dr Collins opened a door, a rather familiar door from the past few days and he had to stop himself from physically coming to a halt. It was the same room that he had met L once again, all those days ago when, once again, L had thrown him so brilliantly that even his father had noticed. _Why this damn room?!_ He didn't say anything though, just smiled politely back at the woman and thanked her as he walked through the open door. Dr Collins, oblivious to his inner turmoil, shut the door and settled herself on the covered couch on one side of the coffee table, the TV now off and no longer playing any kind of static. Raito wondered if L and his disturbing entourage were watching.

"Please, make yourself comfortable," she said, smiling at him as she set up her notepad and pen just the way she wanted, gesturing him to sit opposite her. Deciding that that would be for the best in this situation he carefully brushed away any dust particles that had built up before sitting on the offered seat. Dr Collins made a brief note on her page before turning to a fresh one and smiling.

"So, shall we begin?"

* * *

 **I don't know whether that was creative or cruel to leave you hanging on this point but there you go. I loved writing Raito in this chapter, not so much later on, just at the beginning where I can imagine him just standing there like 'what the...?'. Yes, he is slightly OOC, but I'm putting him in situations he wouldn't expect to have to be in with L, which makes it both really interesting and really hard to write him at times, but there you go. As for B... well I've taken liberties with him in the sense that during most of the time that you see him in any written form, he is acting like L or insane, so if he seems off to you, hopefully the next chapter or so will fix that for you. I just wanted to have some lighter moments in this when it all suddenly got rather dark.**

 **Hopefully, you have enjoyed this chapter and I will see you next week with part 2! Although as a side note, I was wondering if anyone wanted me to name the chapters in this rather than it just being Chapter 1, Chapter 2 etc. Please let me know what you think and leave a review or comment. Thank you!**


	12. XII: Analysis Part I

**For once, I'm actually slightly early in updating this! Yey! Before we start, I would like to say that as of next week, unless there are any people completely against the idea, I will be heading these chapters with physical names, rather than 'Chapter 1, Chapter 2... etc.' Just thought that I would give you an extra week's warning in case your all happy with the way that it is and don't want them.**

 **Anyway, I would like to say thank you to Total epic Sailor Minion, DemonishFangirl and Fairwaters for your reviews. And as for Dr Collins being a motherfigure for B... in all honesty I didn't intentionally write her that way but then kind of wove it in for later plot points. But yes, in a way she is since B has no other mother-like figure in his life (and none of the rest of the Wammy's kids either but that's a different issue), especially since he doesn't consider his own mother to be one. Other than that, I won't be saying anything else as that would be spoilers ;) I would also ike to thank Ruby626 for favouritng this.**

 **Anyway, hopefully you will enjoy this chapter!**

* * *

Karabas was bored. However, unlike the time before at the hospital back in New York, it wasn't soul consuming. It was just ordinary boredom mixed with a wariness that could rapidly turn into something else as they waited for Dr Collins and the boy named Raito Yagami to return. He had seen people like him before at the hospital, the ones that were so concerned with controlling their lives, that they sent themselves spinning into a downward spiral, all the time denying that there was anything wrong with him. Also, he doubted that the man spent less than half an hour in the mornings sorting out his _hair_. Sometimes, he wondered what would have happened if he had turned out like that, then decided against it. Considering where he had grown up, it was unlikely he would have turned out similar to a pampered, middle class child who spent most of his life being told that he was the best, the 'darling' of the family.

Instead he considered himself to be more like the sister, constantly struggling for something that was impossible.

True, he was happy and content currently where he was. This was probably the best he had felt in a long time and messing with people's heads was always a plus. Mitsu seemed to have enjoyed his little spectacle- although she didn't look convinced enough to hand the jam jar _back_ \- and even Lael looked to have cracked a smile at some point. It was nice to know that he could still do that, as disturbing as the idea that he had lost a large chunk of his memories was. If there was one thing he could rely on it was that these two would always be on the other side, waiting for him. But now…

Karabas rarely contemplated the finalities of life lately. It brought the monster to the foreground, tempted it out of hiding. He had once, it was a fascinating concept after all. Everybody died- there was no getting away from that. But how and why, that was a different matter entirely. Why were doctors able to save some but not others? Why would life abruptly end when it was so long in beginning? Why was the cause of death inside one human different from another when fundamentally they were all made of the same stuff? He had tried to look into that when he was younger, when he could still think clearly and there weren't fuzzy places in his brain that threatened to steal him away and replace him with that other side, the one that no one liked. But now, he had to try to place those thoughts to those he loved while _not_ looking into it. Which, in all honesty, was impossible. So he did the next best thing- he blocked it all out until it would be impossible and the rampaging beast on the inside of his mind sprang free. Not the best of plans, but one that he could commit to nonetheless.

The new arrivals were also far too intriguing right now to take much notice of that. The uptight chief and the police officer that Mitsu seemed to like. He was probably too old for her, but it was more in a brotherly sort of manner than anything else. It was hard to look at her in that way, not after everything that had happened to them but it was nice to know that some people still looked out for them. Lael was also at ease with that one, and so Karabas had supposed that he wasn't so bad- the fact that he didn't flinch away like the other one when he had been caught unawares by them gave him extra points in Karabas' book. It made him glad that Touta Matsuda had a nice long lifespan, one that meant he would grow old and die, most likely having lived a full and vibrant life- that was of no doubt with his clear upbeat attitude. Karabas wasn't sure about the other one, Soichiro Yagami who had spawned the _thing_ that walked through the door, but it wasn't his place to judge.

However, he had to admit, that he didn't like Raito Yagami one bit, and he hadn't even spoken a word to him. Playing around with his head was fun, but there was something off about him. And he needed to talk to Lael about him alone, where the other two wouldn't stare at him like he was crazy. Raito unnerved him in a way that Lael never had- heck, not even the creepy child that was Near freaked Karabas out in the way that Raito did. At least he had a lifespan above his head, reassuringly ticking down the many, _many_ years he had left.

And then there was that name. Everyone's names were written above their heads, always translating (annoyingly) so he would know what they were. And everyone that Karabas had met had one name and only one. Even his captor all those years ago, despite his alias, had only one name above his head. You could name yourself all you liked, you had only one name and that was the one given to you at birth. But Raito… it was hard to read Raito's name because there was another one laid out on top. He couldn't read it clearly, although he could guess, and it made him jumpy. He had never met a person with MPD, so he couldn't be sure if it was that (better to wait for Dr Collins to come back) but it was just one of those things that were just not right, making him all the more twitchy. It put the monster on edge too and that was bad. When it was on edge, it ran wild and when it did that, it got out.

 _Not now, not here_ he pleaded silently as it prowled the exterior of the cage he had built for it over the years. _We just got out._

 _It is a threat and we don't take kindly to threats_ it snapped back and the childish part of him that always did so recoiled. Karabas jumped up from the floor, needing something to do. He just needed to get his mind off of this, to take away any ammunition from the creature before it could break free entirely. The police chief watched him warily and even Mitsu looked up from her sketchbook. Lael tilted his head in such a way that Karabas knew he could watch him while continuing to work on the specific case he was working on.

"Everything ok?" Mitsu asked, quiet enough that it wouldn't disturb those working. Soichiro Yagami had moved to the bank of computers as well but had turned in his chair to observe what was about to happen. Karabas merely shrugged, unsure of how to explain it in front of so many people. He glanced at the glowing name above her head, reading the reassuring name there and lifespan. _Mitsu Lawliet 79080639._ He could almost smile if that wasn't some kind of lifeline to prevent the creature from breaking out.

Instead he turned to the boards that she and Lael had set up in their spare time, looking over the evidence and names of all the victims, coming to rest on one specific one. _Naomi Misora_. It took nearly everything he had from voluntarily setting the creature loose on the killer downstairs. Naomi may not have understood him as well as Lael or Mitsu, she may not even have realised that the real B was completely different from the persona of Beyond Birthday that the creature had given itself, but she was still a good person. She still had that spark of life in her that no matter what she did, would survive past her job in the FBI and marriage to the other victim, Raye Penbar.

"You know she might not be dead." He almost jumped as Mitsu approached him from behind, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder, having to reach up slightly as she did so. Unlike her brother, she had not grown as much in height and so made up for it with heels when not in a house. "We never found a body."

"I'm sure it's rotting away somewhere, just waiting to be found," he growled, feeling the creature rise up in the back of his mind. In vain, he attempted to try to shove it back down. He could feel Yagami watching him closely, Matsuda having done that same trick of splitting his attention between the computer and what was going on behind them. Even Lael paused in his typing, something he only did if there was something more important going on. As flattered as he was that he was considered important, he didn't like the way in which it had come about. Mitsu paused, before linking her arm around his, gently pulling him away.

"Come on, I haven't shown you the rest of the building yet," she said. "There's a whole sick bay level, you'll love it." Karabas appreciated her foresight to get him out of those laser stares, but he wasn't too sure about the idea of letting him anywhere near anything sharp. Lael paused before shoving the keyboard towards Matsuda and standing up.

"Matsuda could you finish those notes for me? I think I'll go with Mitsu and B," he said, although it was more of a statement than a question. Matsuda, after getting over the slight surprise that registered on his face merely nodded with a large goofy grin.

"Sure thing L!" he chirped, setting his own computer onto standby and scooting over to the offered computer. Case notes may not have been the most interesting parts of a case, especially not on the types of cases L took on (most were fairly grisly) but for someone as trod on as Matsuda, it was probably brilliant that he was singled out over his own boss. Lael just nodded and wandered up beside them, hands in his pockets.

"Shall we?"

* * *

Johanna Collins found it rather easy to say that she had never encountered a person such as Raito Yagami before in her life. It seemed obvious to her, as it had to Mitsu, that many of his most recent actions in the past nine months, many in his entire _life_ in fact, were merely a ruse put up for the world to perceive that he was 'normal'. She had read notes on some cases of OCD which had led people into doing something similar, usually to hide the fact that in truth they were _not_ alright. In other cases, some she had worked on herself in her time as a counsellor before becoming a psychiatrist, she had found that to a certain extent some people acted in a certain way to hide issues such as homosexuality or domestic abuse. Issues that were poles apart but made some feel that they had to cover up the bruises and scars to give out the aura that everything was fine and they were just another normal citizen.

Raito Yagami, at first glance, had none of these problems and it may be that that made him hard to figure out. He had a warm and loving family, a mother that doted on him, a proud father and a little sister that looked up to him. He was popular in school, being both good looking and intelligent, put in the good books of both the teachers and fellow pupils. He was never overbearing, never harsh and never unfair. He treated people the way that most well treated, loved children of police officers did- he looked out for the little man, believing in such principles as justice and equality. But that was the surface and Johanna knew, that beneath the cracks, was a very different persona, one that was bored, that felt constricted by this privileged lifestyle but ignorant of everything that might have happened if things had gone so differently. She considered the possibility that he didn't even know.

Looking at him now, she knew that this interview would have results that he would not expect. He sat, quietly confident, waiting for her first questions, seemingly totally at ease with his surroundings. However there were signs, little things that pointed towards this being nothing more than a farce. He had hesitated, ever so slightly, before entering the room, dusted off the chair, glanced at the TV as if checking that it was off. She had deliberately chosen this room after the strong reaction he had had towards Lael. She had seen various tapes of him in his house, pretending to act like a normal teenager, although she was fairly certain that it was an act- no one whose bookshelf held hardly any fiction in it would resort to buying pornographic magazines and hiding them in a small file like there was a stash there (it also helped that Lael's monitors were of such a high definition and angles, you could make out that the other magazines were actually scientific magazines). That gave her some clue as to part of what he may be hiding, but that was his business and no one else's. Let him live in the proverbial closet if he wished.

"So shall we begin?" she asked, knowing that he was nowhere near 'ready' (no one ever was) and smiled, giving off the usual vibe of trustworthiness and hospitality that she had perfected over the years. Raito seemed unaffected but nodded his assent anyway, a casual smile (forced, as many of Karabas' were) slipped onto his face.

"Of course," he said amiably, only the slightest hint of a tremble that no one other than one as used to picking up the emotional slack of geniuses would.

"As a trained professional I must ask, is there anything that you wish to discuss before I start on my own questions?" she asked. "Anything that might be bothering you, anything you don't wish to talk about?" Raito raised an eyebrow, looking truthfully slightly mystified.

"I thought the point of this was to remove all suspicion of whether I am Kira or not?" The statement was smoothly phrased into a question and Johanna prevented her mouth from turning into a knowing smile. A psychologist had control over all facial aspects so as to appear as unassuming and non-judgemental as possible. It was sweet that he believed himself so practised at lying and half-truths that he could lie to her. She dealt with men who made lying their whole life, lies that they believed would get them out of jail faster (or in the case of Karabas, avoid any deep issues altogether)- his own were pitiful compared to theirs, practised as he was. Bless him that he tried.

"The whole point of this interview is to assess your psyche to see whether or not you have the ability and stamina to be Kira. So far, I must say if you are trying to put me off by being charming, it's not working." For a brief moment, so quick that most other people would have missed it, Raito's face twisted into something that was as far from attractive as possible. It was there and gone in an instant and Johanna internally shook her head- _Karabas_ was better at lying than this boy. Even in his lowest point, he had been able to fool an FBI agent into believing that he was a completely different, sane (if eccentric) person. Raito then shrugged almost amiably again, face pleasant once more.

"Fair enough, but I must insist that I am innocent." Johanna made no comment to that and instead turned to her notepad, making a brief note among the many she already had on him (really if he wanted to convince her he shouldn't have left so much psychological evidence in his previous actions) on his quick turnabout. _Quick, yes, but not quick enough to fool me._

"Well, if that's all, how about we start with school," Johanna said, flicking to her notes on Raito's school years. There wasn't much there in the sense of looking for Kira- the serial killer _was_ a new phenomenon after all- but she always found it helpful to get a good background to her patients rather than going in blind. Raito blinked in surprise, amazed at the turnaround, his eyes looking slightly thrown, but his face was neutral. Impressive, but not good enough.

"What would you like to know?" he asked. She merely smiled, allowing him to draw his own conclusions.

"Anything. Everything. Your feelings towards your other classmates, how school was for you, what you thought of your teachers. Everything you say here is strictly confidential. The only information I will be sharing with anyone else is that of my diagnosis unless I feel the need to refer to a specialist, in which case I will pass my notes on securely to them." He didn't need to know that she already had several verdicts, one of which was his to tell his family- _that is if he has even realised it. If not, he's in the perfect place right now to figure it out for himself._ Raito seemed to think on this for a moment before taking in a deep breath. Johanna merely waited for him to take his time, ready for anything he was going to throw her way.

* * *

Raito was not enjoying this interview as much as he had expected. It didn't help that he was tired or that she had seen through the charm almost immediately, making him all the more aware of his facial expressions and what emotions he let through and allowed on his face. Especially after that first slip when she had so bluntly corrected him in his subtle prodding her in the right direction. And now she wanted to hear about school? He had left that damned place as soon as he could! He would have left earlier if his parents had let him move up through the year groups faster, but his mother believed in the whole school experience rather than just the educational side, and so he had appeased her by sticking through it. His peers were barely functioning morons, thinking no further than girls, boys, sex and other immature themes. It was all a waste of time in his opinion, but Raito hadn't squandered his time. As idiotic as the rest of them were, he still befriended some, knowing that they wouldn't all be this dense for the rest of their lives and looking out for others, especially the downtrodden geeks of the school, meant he would be in good standing with them for the most influential roles in the country.

Of course, this doctor didn't need to know any of that. All she needed to know was that he enjoyed school and that he got along fine with the people he interacted with, even if he hadn't truly gelled all that well with them in the classroom environment. Even those at To Oh had barely been much better, and Raito was glad he had dropped out for this.

"I'm not really sure what you want me to say. School was fine for me. I enjoyed my classes and got along well with my peers," he said, smile fixed firmly in place. Dr Collins jotted something down, ticking something off.

"But you didn't have any close friends?" she asked, looking at him carefully. She didn't seem all that obtrusive, but with how observant she was proving to be, Raito was having to work extra hard to keep all his emotions in check and off his face. It didn't help that the other half kept trying to butt in and agree with her, especially on this particular statement. For now, he allowed it, but when they moved closer to the time of L's supposed death he was going to have to find some way of reining it in. So he shrugged once again in this interview, keeping close eye contact with her to give the impression of the truth.

"I had quite a few friends and girlfriends," he said with a smile, inciting a quirk of an eyebrow from the doctor, "I had everything I needed."

"And then you met Ryuzaki at To Oh. From what I've heard you two got on like a house on fire," she said, smiling herself. Raito found himself laughing before he could stop himself.

"Oh Ryuzaki was different alright. He wasn't afraid to be what he wanted, no matter what anyone said about the way he sat or spoke or held things." _Or diet_ Raito thought, knowing all the strange and hurtful things that had spread around the campus after L left. They criticised the way he dressed, the way he talked, the way he sat and the way he so clearly took very little care of himself. But it had been clear to Raito that Ryuzaki wasn't _unattractive_. His most striking feature had been his eyes, so large and dark, it was like swimming under the moon. And his hands were long and thin and delicate- in fact the first time Raito had seen him, thin frame tucked up on the chair like it was normal for a person to sit like that, he looked so delicate he might brake like fine china. And then that tennis match… even through the thin white shirt, you could see the lean muscles stretch and coil, each movement so prepared and certain it was breath-taking, a little like L's form in those showers…

Raito realised, with a start that he had slipped at some point into daydreaming, the other side with some stupid vapid dreamy far off look in its eyes that it almost made him gag. Dr Collins had clearly seen it too and had a raised eyebrow, waiting for some kind of response.

"I suppose he would count as the closest friend I have," Raito admitted as the other half huffed in annoyance. _He's the only friend we have_.

"Yes, I suppose he is." For some reason Dr Collins sounded like she was thinking of something completely different but she didn't let him think on that for one moment. "I understand that your father had a heart attack soon after the Kira case began. That must have been hard for you, what with the stress of being a college student at a prestigious university and dealing with family issues at the time." Raito cringed internally at that thought. He hadn't truly thought about that incident since it had happened. The initial rush of shock hadn't been as overwhelming as the instant panic that rose when his mother mentioned 'heart attack' in the vicinity of L, especially after what had just been discussed. Now, with his head all messed up after somehow talking about Ryuzaki and where that had lead, however briefly, did not instil his previous confidence in being able to discuss anything with this woman without giving anything away. He needed a moment to collect his thoughts, to put them back in order where they should be without that stupid other half interfering. It could help to talk about it, but that day was so different to how he usually felt, only one of a handful of incidences where pure emotion had ruled rather than logic and intelligence, that he wasn't even sure _how_ to discuss it.

"I rather wouldn't talk about that day. As you said, it was… stressful." Dr Collins nodded and moved on like there hadn't been a pause in the conversation and slipped further through her notes.

"According to Lael's notes, you were imprisoned for 50 days at the request of both yourself and Interpol in the interests of weeding out the possibility of your being Kira," she said as if this was all information he had been privy to. Well, he certainly remembered offering himself up, but not the involvement of Interpol. "I also understand that the release test had the capacity to be traumatic as well. Is there anything there you wish to discuss?" It was prompted at softly but Raito wasn't sure what she was looking for anymore. These questions clearly had a point, to discover whether he was Kira, but he couldn't be certain whether she could see through the lies and half-truths. The way she spoke at times…

"The internment was unpleasant but bearable," he settled for, thinking hard on what the correct answer to the second part might be. "As for how we were released… It was a stressful experience and one I'll gladly not repeat, but there was a part of me that knew my father would never hurt me." Truthfully, that was one of those other times where emotion took over logic, when the other half had complete control and was terrified out of his wits whilst Kira was sitting on the side-lines, alone and forgotten until required once more when suspicion had fallen away. Another experience that Raito _really_ didn't want to think about but had to for this damn woman. _She's poking around in things she has no business being a part of!_

 _Perhaps if you acknowledged that you've just spoken a lie she might leave you alone_ the other half sniffed, not happy as usual with him.

 _Everything I've told her is everything she needs to know_.

 _Even Kira was scared,_ it snapped _. You were afraid that your father really was going to kill you if you were Kira, if Ryuk decided to come back and kill him for ending your life before him. You knew that either way, you were dead._ Raito hated that it was right, hated that Interpol had been involved and no one ever told him, that L seemed to paint himself as the villain constantly but everything seemed to come from jumpy politicians that L had to work within the parameters of what they wanted. Raito hadn't realised that L would be limited to what International figures would want or approve of, and if they had agreed with his internment and the conditions of his release, that made it all the more worrying. _Damn it, the politicians are supposed to be bowing before me not crawling to the enemy!_

"Thank you," Dr Collins said. "What about-" Before she could finish there was a loud crash from one of the higher levels, followed by what Raito assumed to be creative cursing in what sounded like Russian. Dr Collins sighed and placed the pen to one side, notepad closed but dog eared on the page that they were currently on. As far as Raito knew she had barely made any notes so why that was important he wasn't sure. Instead he followed her with his eyes, not bothering to get up as she did.

"I'm sorry, you'll have to excuse me for a moment. It seems B may be having an argument with himself again." She looked down at him, face blank. "I'll have to ask you to stay here. I'll be right back." And with that she was gone, having allowed him all the time in the world to be thankful for the crazy boy that accompanied her being able to create a distraction that would put him back on top of this interview altogether without her knowledge.

* * *

 **Ok, I'm going to be honest I was only going to have B and Raito's points of view in this, but then got caught up in the story a but too much. I also wanted to give you a sense of both perspectives, especially since Raito is constantly underestimating Dr Collins as he hasn't come up against somebody quite like her before. As for his many other issues, including his practical split personality and cut off emotions, I like playing around with the idea that Dr Collins can see them much better than Raito.**

 **As for Raito's exploits with girls... I don't see it and I never have. Any of the girls that Raito had been with in the manga or even the anime he had no interest in at all, only using them for his own ends. In this way I think it's kind of easy for DR Collins to see through that, especially since the only person Raito seems to have gotten close to ever was L in any form. I know that in the manga there wasn't really all that chemistry between them but Raito is usually portrayed as all ew about emotions, considering them pointless in his quest as Kira, so hence I took liberty with this (as many of us do) and here we are.**

 **Please leave a review on what you think of this chapter. I'm sorry that it got cut short (it was B's fault) but it would have been too long if I did the whole thing right now and it wouldn't be on time either. So I shall be back next week with part 2!**


	13. XIII: Analysis Part II

**Hey guys I am so sorry that it has been so long since I have updated this! Hadn't even realised how long it was until I got an email about Torho's review... and then went back and realised that I haven't even logged on since before I started/ moved in at uni... oops. Thank you Torho for reminding me that I do actually have to finish this and it can't live on my laptop taking up space forever and I am glad that you are enjoying the story! As for an explanation as to why it's been so long... well, I've been at uni and just recently returned from a trip to Amsterdam and still have an essay and exam to finish/prepare for so, another update may be a while, I make no promises! But thank you all for your support and interest in this story!**

 **As honourable mentions thank you to Laonasa Enllyn Avery, Super Serial Ethereal, map of rose, Fairwaters, ThatSassAngel and of course Torho for reviewing this. ThatSassAngel also, thank you for your review, I appreciate that OC's are not to everyone's tastes (not usually to mine either to be honest) and I'm glad your enjoying the story despite this :). Also shoutouts to KonekoKai, Izumikii, DemonishFangirl, AnnaTheEmporium and LLawloet365 for favouriting/following this story in the incredibly long time that it has been since this got an update (again the egg is on my face for not noticing the time slipping away :D).**

 **Anyway guys, hopefully the next update will not be in nine months time and never be afraid to review even if it's been so long! Usually it's because I've been busy/lazy/on hiatus with that particular story. And so, on with the long awaited chapter!**

 **WARNING: There is mention of suicide/self-harm/some graphic description of a corpse in this chapter. If this is triggering for you, please skip anything at the beginning in italics.**

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 _The sight in the bathroom was none too pretty. The water was overflowing, but the corpse so fresh that it stained the water dark enough to make it seem like there was gallons of blood on the floor, rather than merely a few pints, leaking out steadily from slashed wrists. L was no stranger to grisly corpses, he worked on cases about some of the most heinous crimes that had ever been committed by members of humanity. He had even seen corpses in real life, preserved downstairs for the forensics group to work over, one of B's favourite classes. But he had never seen a corpse this fresh, with lifeblood oozing from it so quickly. It was hard to believe that the pale floating_ thing _in the bathtub had once been a person, or even the person that he had once known._

 _B had warned them that there was something wrong with A. He had stated that his roommate was acting out of character, depressed in every sense of the word. He hadn't mentioned that he was suicidal, that he would attempt something like this. L glanced around, out of breath from sprinting through the corridors to find this horror in the bathroom and B hunched up in a corner, hands pressed to his mouth like he was about to be sick. From the smell in the room –that which was not the cloying scent of blood- he had already been sick at least once._

" _What happened?" L asked numbly, unable to quite process what had just happened. B merely glanced up at him, red eyes hovering over his head, reading and re-reading his name and numbers like it was a lifeline._

" _I-I know what the numbers mean," he whispered. L realised that he was most likely in shock, that the reading was some kind of hold on reality. Most likely B would be in need of a psychiatrist almost as immediately as A had needed one._ Where is Mitsu when I need her? _L thought. Deciding that cutting himself off from the living was going to help nothing, he crouched gingerly in front of B, blocking his view of the body in the bath. He didn't say anything, merely prompted with his eyes._

" _The numbers… T-They're… They're lifespans." B's voice was barely audible, red eyes still fixed on that spot above L's head. "I didn't realise it at first because there's no values. But the numbers… they count down years, months, days, minutes and seconds." Apparently B in shock meant that he would just rattle off facts- that was not good since it meant he was distancing himself from the situation, perhaps even forcing himself to believe that it was all a bad dream. Hopefully it would wear off with some help, but right now there was nothing he could do about it._

" _What happened?" L asked again, but much softer and gently. It was clear that B had been here to witness the whole thing, to watch as the numbers ticked down those last few seconds until A gave his last breath._

" _I came back here after that meeting with Roger but A left and said he was going for a bath. He locked the door on me and I knew that wasn't right because A doesn't care if I'm in there with him or not, so he always leaves it unlocked. I tried to get him to open the door but all I could hear was the taps running so I figured he was going for a bath. It wasn't until I heard him crying that I thought he was going to try something he would regret so I kicked the door in. But I was too late…" B's red eyes were haunted, staring down into L's, focused now more so than usual. "I couldn't save him." L grabbed the boy into an awkward embrace, something he did for Mitsu when she was upset. He had always thought of B as a brother over the years and it seemed like the right thing to do. B was shaking and unresponsive, but from the wetness on his shoulder he guessed that he was crying._

 _L knew that he shouldn't be wasting time like this. He should be running out of the door, trying to find anyone that could possibly help in this situation but he also knew he couldn't leave B here alone. To leave him here left him at the mercy of everything that he had just witnessed, a danger to both himself and the scene. There was nothing more he could do but hope that someone else had heard B's earlier screams- most likely on the point at which the numbers ran out- and came to investigate. Unfortunately for them, in the past few days, the pair had been having rather loud arguments in their room- something that was not out of the norm so much as the increase in number and severity. It wouldn't be until someone came to physically find L that someone would come to find them._

 _L paused in letting B go, but knew he would have to eventually. In his shock, B didn't seem to be violent, but he also didn't seem altogether all there either. It was like someone had taken the B that L knew and replaced him with an empty shell that was currently staring at the floor. Taking a deep breath, L let him go and went to investigate the corpse in the bath that was all that was left of A._

 _It was clear that B had at least attempted to help A if the bloodstains on his hands and the wetness of his clothes were anything to go by. There were also faint bruises where B had grabbed his wrists, attempted to stem the bleeding with a bloody towel, the first aid kit scattered across the floor. L leant forwards and deftly turned off the still running taps, aware that the room was far quieter than it should have been. He knew that B was skilled- as the best forensic scientist in all of Wammy's, there was no one else more qualified to treat A's wounds other than perhaps the doctor who taught the subject. Yes, forensics didn't teach medicine, but B spent enough time opening and closing bodies that he would have instantly known that this amount of blood loss was deadly and what was required to prevent a death like those in the hospital morgue that he sometimes visited. Like L, he had been put to work straight away and had even given suggestions in some of L's earliest cases, before he was whisked away from Wammy's House and everything he held dear._

 _L bent over A's body and closed his eyes. It was the one thing that B had forgotten to do, but that was forgivable. To watch someone die, someone as close as to consider a brother, was no easy task and especially for B, who had known no closer friends than them at Wammy's House. He rarely spoke of the mother that abandoned him, didn't speak of the father that he had never known. It was hard to get a story out of him that involved anything to do with his life before Wammy's and now L feared that this would lead him away from those who called him family. Mitsu might have liked him in a different way, but L loved him like he was the missing member of their family- as if they had been born triplets rather than two different boys from two different countries._

 _B was quietly murmuring something in Russian- he heard the word 'puppet-master' in there somewhere and L abandoned the bathtub. There was nothing more that could be done for A and he would need to concentrate on keeping B from further delirium. He decided that it would most likely be best to remove B from this room, to take him at least to the other side of the door but most definitely not back to his room. Perhaps L's room would do (he had a spare bed after all) but any thought of staying in that room alone would not help B at all._

" _Come on B," L murmured, hooking his arms under B's own and helping pull him to his feet. For now L was slightly taller than B, but slighter, and so it was hard to hold him upright when he swayed worryingly, fighting to stay on his feet, blinking in alarm. "We need to get help." They needed to do far more than that but right now, B's wellbeing was the priority. B didn't seem to hear him but for once, God seemed to be on his side as Mitsu flew around the corner._

" _I heard that B and A were in an argument again-!" she called, cutting off as she reached the door, taking in the bathtub, A's body and B's blank face. She paled considerably, glanced once at L to ascertain that he was fine on his own before running back down the corridor, screaming out for Roger all the while. That seemed to startle the orphanage to realise that something was very very wrong. A mere two minutes Roger was on the scene just as L managed to get B out of the bathroom but no further. As soon as the passed the doorway B's legs gave out on him and he refused to move, locked within the confines of his own mind and the dreadful conclusions it had come to._

 _Roger spent all of five minutes in the bathroom before emerging and shutting the door behind him. In that time it seemed that the entire orphanage had descended on them, the trio sitting up against one wall, the twins flanking B on either side. He had barely moved or spoken since L had managed to get him out of the bathroom and it was them that Roger approached as the other children pestered him with questions. The noise was too loud to hear the world outside but L knew, from the time that had passed, that Mr Wammy had to have either arrived, or would do so soon._

" _Take him to the sickbay and stay there with him until I come to get you," Roger said, eyes staring down with concern at the catatonic B. L nodded and, with Mitsu's help, managed to get B back on his feet once again._

 _It was no easy task to move him through the orphanage. B was nothing more than a dead weight, lost to the world for the moment, and Mitsu was shorter than L. By the time they got there, they were both hot and sweating but neither particularly cared. They set B down carefully on one of the beds, slightly breathless. Neither of them spoke, too caught up in the moment as B merely stared up at the ceiling, every so often murmuring in Russian, although L wasn't sure exactly what he was saying._

 _They spent most of the night that way, waiting in silence, always waiting for news that wouldn't end well. Sometime during the night, B started sobbing, hiding under the sheets._

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Raito wasn't entirely sure what was going on upstairs. There was the sound of crashing and shouting, like some toddler in the middle of a temper tantrum, only much louder and much more sinister. He also wanted to leave this room with its connotations towards what had happened between himself and L, where it had all started to go wrong.

 _No, I can recover from this. Use this time to think of ways to divert her._ Dr Collins didn't specify when she would return only that she would. That left Raito in the uncomfortable position of being stuck in a room with no one but himself. And although he was able to now concentrate on keeping her off the scent whenever the doctor returned, his mind was no so keen to let him go. The other half had been simmering in the back of his mind, unhappy that Raito was shoving it as far back as he could. _You've interfered enough_ he spat at it, attempting to shove it down further. There was another distant crash, the sound of shouting and then silence. Shocked at the sudden absence of noise, Raito stood from the chair he had been sitting in and quietly opened the door.

Wherever B was, it had to be somewhere close, closer than Raito had thought. The tenth floor was one of many that Raito had barely paid attention to at any time before, but he now realised that it was slightly different in the fact that while there were doors all down the left side of the corridor, most likely much like the ones he was residing in at the moment, there were only three on the right side. The furthest door on the right was open and Raito could hear the faint noise of voices speaking quietly, only audible due to both doors being open. Even more disturbing was the even fainter sound of someone crying. Feeling for once as if he were intruding, suddenly out of his element and unable to help in any way, Raito merely closed the door, thinking on that.

He couldn't tell who was crying down the corridor, but it was obvious that it had been B creating all the noise- only someone as unstable as to think that they were a corpse could create such a racket. It seemed unlikely to be L who had suddenly had some kind of emotional breakdown, but the same couldn't be said of his sister Mitsu. But then again, he couldn't think of a reason why anyone would suddenly lose all control of their faculties like someone so obviously had down there. He wondered what had set it off, wondering if he could use that to his advantage later. He settled himself down once more into his seat, thinking on that idea. Having a clearly unstable person in the building could actually be a blessing in disguise, especially if he could use this to further turn suspicion away from him. To everyone else in the building, Kira was also mentally unstable and if this boy had murderous tendencies (as he so clearly did) then turning that suspicion to him specifically could only be so easy once this annoyance of an interview was dealt with.

Ten minutes later, Dr Collins appeared again in the room, that same stupid smile on her face. She said nothing to explain what had occurred outside, merely sat back down in the seat opposite him and opened the notebook once more, picking up her pen.

"So sorry for the interruption. Now, where were we?" she asked sweetly, and Raito was suddenly struck by just how dangerously perceptive this woman was. Not only had she easily seen through his disguise, not only had she taken in stride a breakdown from an unstable patron of hers but she was now acting as if nothing had happened. Well, two could play at that game.

"I believe we were discussing my internment by L," Raito said, giving her a warm smile back, as if to say that he understood that things between her and this B were private and he respected that.

"Ah, yes." She nodded, glancing down at her notes- of what little there were- before moving on. "Now as I was saying, what about after that? How was your relationship with L? How did it make you feel that he never mentioned Interpol's actions to you?" Raito paused, considering this, deciding that he could use these stupid emotions once again to his favour.

"Well, I'll admit, it hurt that he thought I was capable of being Kira and continued to do so even after evidence showed up against the fact and it turned out that Kira was using the Yotsuba Company instead of some teenagers." He paused and then glanced at her through the corner of his eyes. "My girlfriend, Misa Amane, was near traumatised by the whole thing." Dr Collins raised one eyebrow at that and Raito internally smiled. Now he could get her on his side. If she didn't believe him entirely, Misa was far more emotive with her feelings and he could use her to prove his innocence.

"Yes, how is your relationship with Misa going?" Dr Collins asked. "It's surprising that the two of you got together considering L noted many times how you couldn't stand her affections." Raito refused to allow any expression of anger take on his face but he couldn't stop his fingers from clenching. _Of course_ L would have taken note of that as he did everything else. He just had to note that one tiny fact down, the one thing that was true in his relationship with Misa that it would come up now.

"It's going wonderfully. I just didn't appreciate it much at the time with all the stress, but I realised later that she had helped me so much through that time with all her kindness and support that I felt I had to give her a chance." _Liar_ the pitiful little creep in his head spat. _You can't stand her because she's such an idiot_.

 _Shut up_ he spat right back, ignoring it. Dr Collins smiled, nodded and made another note.

"Moving on then, I just have a couple more questions. After your name was cleared completely, how did you feel? You seemed to have drifted away from Ryuzaki a little before the, ah, _incident_?" she asked, tactfully mincing around L's death. Raito paused, wondering what on earth she meant by that. He hadn't acted all that differently from before had he? _You tried to get rid of me back then, remember? You had no time for anything but being Kira and trying to crush me into pieces_ the other side of him snapped, rolling its eyes at him. _Someone was bound to notice_. A bit thrown by the pair of them, Raito blinked, trying to form an answer.

"I… A lot was going on at the time. I didn't really notice, but I suppose with the relief of being free and getting together with Misa, I just didn't have a lot of time left over to spend with L." Something seemed very wrong with that lie but Raito wasn't entirely sure what it was. Once again this woman had brought his mind to its knees, and he felt unprepared for what the inevitable last question was. Dr Collins seemed to look over him once and, after making a couple of more notes, closed her notebook and smiled at him.

"Thank you for your time Raito, I've got enough now for your father and L." She smiled at him, rising from her seat and offering out her hand. "Feel free to call in anytime if there's anything else you wish to discuss." Raito stared a moment at the hand before smiling and taking it, all the while lost at sea on the inside. What had just happened? Why had she not asked about L's death? She had asked about literally everything else, all those things he had never wanted to remember or go back on, he had been forced to do so but this? The thing he had been the most prepared for and she hadn't even asked? Perhaps she had some plan to get him to bring it up himself, to fall into some trap she had laid? If so, he wasn't going to fall for it.

"It was no trouble," he said, not missing a beat. And then, as an afterthought to sweeten her up, "I hope your patient feels better soon."

"I'm sure he is," she said cryptically, before walking towards the door and leaving, not even waiting for Raito and his floundering thoughts to catch up.

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 **Ok so that was that. I was going to have Dr Collins ask Raito about L's death but then decided not to. I have stuff planned later on about that ;). Other than that, I'm sorry this is a bit shorter than previous chapters but I honestly didn't have the time or energy left to put it into this one (a bit rusty if the second half of this chapter clearly shows) but I will try to make the next one longer/updated faster. Anyway, just to touch on this, I did get a request to make this M, however I do not feel that this requires that high of a rating (I trust you all to be responsible -mostly- in what you read) and this is honestly as graphic as it gets. If anyone feels that the rating should go up, feel free to message me/leave it in a review as I am open to the fact that others may see this more in the mature section, however I try to rate my fics by their content rather than writing style. Just thought that I would leave that point out there if anyone else felt this way.**

 **Please read and leave a review - for all those flamers out there of constructive criticism if you must- and I will try to get back to you sooner!**


	14. Notice

**Ok, so er, hi all. First of all, I apologise SO MUCH that this is not an update! I know that, especially for some, this has been two years in the making and that after all this time it has resulted in nothing but this measely excuse of a notice but I do have a few reasons as to this.**

 **So, to explain, here is why this has been such a long time in coming.**

 **In case anyone doesn't know, for the past two-three years I have been struggling with depression/anxiety and stuff, mainly caused by old secondary school here in sunny England (it is actually raining right now) which has only gotten worse in the past couple of years while studying away at university. This has made writing hard and for a while I lost all interest in writing creatively and even reading. But, worry not, I am getting better and am moving on with my life.**

 **So, as mentioned before, I am now at university, which I am enjoying so much more than school (so for anyone who's fed up with the educational system in England- it does get better, learning wise unless you're going into something like Law or Business or something- then I say good luck. I'm joking do what you like but yeah, uni is a LOT better). This means that I have less time to write due to having to work to actually live and studying for my course. So there's that.**

 **A lot of shit has gone down recently. This past year has been, quite honestly dreadful. I won't go into the gory details but let's just say that it has involved near bankruptcy and the loss of my grandmother so I have not been writing this past year at all. Like, not a single word. It's only recently that I've started to look back on some of my works and gone, dear god I've been leaving people hanging for TWO YEARS you have become the very thing you hate!**

 **So, don't despair. Chapters will be out as soon as possible, especially as things are starting to look a little better now in my life. I won't promise regular updates, but they will be updated within a couple of months I hope so you won't have to go two years again.**

 **Also, anyone new to these stories, hi. You lucked out on waiting two years for an update and I hope that you are enjoying these as much as people were two years ago. I will also be cross-posting these on AO3 at some point as well. Soon, anyhow, so stay tuned for news on that.**


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